Re: [soac-newgtldapsup-wg] WT 1 Fees-lower up front fee

[Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg@xxxxxxxxx>]

At 18/05/2010 02:16 PM, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
> On 18 May 2010 13:36, Richard Tindal 
> <<mailto:richardtindal@xxxxxx>richardtindal@xxxxxx> wrote:
> An argument that some parties may use against 
> this will be the same argument used against the 
> Expression of Interest proposal  ---   that 
> only requiring a portion of the fees up front 
> will encourage speculative applications.
>
>
> There will still be speculative applications. 
> The difference is that under the status quo, 
> only the well-funded will be able to engage in it.
> A counter-argument is that I don't see the 
> problem with such "speculation". At each stage 
> the speculator pays up-front the fees for the 
> next stage of evaluation. The speculator either:
> - gives up at some stage, ICANN keeps the money 
> pre-paid, and the string goes back into the available pool;
> - proceeds to completion, in which case it's no 
> more speculative than any other application
> In fact, I see graduated fees as a *counter* 
> gaming tactic, in that it allows community 
> groups to compete for strings that might 
> otherwise have gone to the first/only group with 
> enough money to grab it. It's one thing to just 
> have a community objection process, quite 
> another to enable the community the ability to actually propose an alternative.
> Â  Â This was discussed at some length in 
> Nairobi and there were a lot of concerns 
> expressed about the  'gaming' possibility.
>
> At a certain point it's possible to get so 
> paranoid about gaming that otherwise sensible 
> measures are ignored. Indeed, I can see the 
> anti-gaming measures themselves the source of gaming :-)
> As gaming has become a euphamism for 'cheating', 
> means different things to different 
> perspectives. Let's be clear that any 
> anti-gaming measures that we define or support:
> 1) Clearly identify what they're trying to prevent
> 2) Establish that the activity they're trying to 
> prevent is contrary to the public interest
> 3) Don't add unintended consequences and side-effects that negate the benefit
>
> - Evan
I guess the only situation that I would think 
might be important is if the same string is being 
requested by multiple parties and the low 
fee-entrant was not really serious but using it 
as a way of stopping the other applicant. But it 
is hard to come up with a scenario where the 
applicant passes whatever hurdles we will put up 
and is doing this purely with the "blocking" motivation.
Alan