Re: [alac] new gTLDs

[Thomas Roessler <roessler-mobile@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 2003-04-02 17:57:19 +0200, Vittorio Bertola wrote:

> The idea is fine, but if you're just bidding for a new TLD which
> you want to operate directly and you don't know whether you will
> succeed, you won't be establishing your registry and accrediting
> yourself before having won the bid, so there won't be much more
> than a plan to evaluate.

You're looking at Ross' proposal in the context of today's
uncertainties.

It really only makes sense in the context of a future environment in
which TLD delegations happen by mechanisms much more predictable 
than the ones you have today -- something like the no-harm criterium
mentioned by Vint in Rio (and mentioned in this thread yesterday by
Wendy).  It would, in fact, be one of the cornerstones of such an
environment.

Thus, if you (1) want to operate a registry, and (2) believe that
it's a good idea to be your only customer, then nothing should stop
you from getting accredited and getting the TLD up and running.
(This is roughly the same thing Amazon has apparently been doing
with its registrar accreditation, just on a different level.)

But that wouldn't be the commercially reasonable thing to do, for
most players: Once you are accredited as a registry operator, you
could rather compete with other such operators, and try to get more
TLD delegates convinced to use you.

(Or you'd try to get more TLDs yourself -- in fact, that brings up
one of the open questions in this picture: How to resolve
conflicting delegation requests? How to resolve the case in which
one delegee [or delegees substantially owned by the same entity] ask
for a *lot* of delegations, and thereby create conflicting requests?
But are auctions a good idea?  Some dinner chat in Rio boiled down
to the conclusion that an auction model in 2000 would probably have
lead most or all of the current registry operators into bankrupcy.)

Besides that, even if you don't get "your" TLD, your investment into
accreditation would not have been wasted -- you could still apply
for a different TLD, or offer services to other delegees.  In the
traditional approach (in which a TLD bid includes all the operation
details), much of the investment made for getting the technical
proposal done would evaporate.

Regards,
-- 
Thomas Roessler                 <roessler-mobile@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>