[soac-newgtldapsup-wg] applicant purpose (was: Comments On Draft text)

[ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Michele,

I did write the text I presume you are commenting on.

You wrote:

> If ICANN were to go down this route and start running registry operators
> (or funding them) then I can see a multitude of issues, not least of them
> being conflicts of interest, competition issues etc etc., But suffice to
> say that I do not believe that it is ICANN's role to get involved in this
> sort of activity - it's out of scope.

I wasn't thinking of you in particular when I wrote:

> Objections to this recommendation are likely from ... and from those
> who view this -- and any other programmatic cooperation among qualified
> applicants -- as reducing qualified applicant dependence upon providers. 

However, I appreciate the point of view being offered so promptly.

If there was language in the grant of support to any JAS qualified
applicant which forbid the applicant from using any portion of the
funds provided under the program arising from Recommendation 20 to
provide or cause to create a service which was available from one
or more commercial providers, by the applicant alone, or in in
cooperation with one or more other applicants, would your concern
be adequately addressed?

I'm not trying to convince you of anything, but if we assume, just for
the purposes of discussion, that two or more applicants pool their
resources and create a shared registry services platform and thereby
compete with all other shared registry services platform operators,
if only "for their own business" as registry contract holder tenants
on some registry services platform, that your view is that there are
"conflict of interest" and/or a "competition policy" issues sufficient
to either invoke an unidentified compliance issue arising from existing
consensus policy, or legal liabilities?

Did I get the sense of your point correctly? If so, would just one
applicant, acting in isolation, "self-hosting", also cause these
same concerns?

If you perceive anything in this question insulting or belittling
or deliberately obscure or written for some purpose other than
understanding what you think restricting the applicants purpose in
their exercise of the benefit of support means in practice, please
ignore this note.

Eric