VeriSign can not be blamed for anything. They act
as businesspeople. If I would be the CEO of VeriSign I'd do the same. The only body
they are responsible to is their shareholders and they do have fiduciary duty to
their shareholders to make as much revenues and as much profits as possible.The
story about separating Registrar and Registry operations within VeriSign is irrelevant
as is the story of how much their Registrar pays for the domain names. Of course
they pay the cost. Moving money from the left pocket to the right is not something
we should be concerned about and frankly it is none of our business.
Again it is
not VeriSign to blame fort it. They just do business as usual.
Surprisingly no
one is looking at this situation from the most conventional and most reasonable standpoint.
Registry business is the
manufacturing/wholesale of the domain names while the
Registrar is the
retailer/reseller.
Every manufacturer/wholesaler knows about
the importance of the reseller channel. The smart ones keep the channel as their
most precious asset. The smart wholesalers never compete with their channel. It is
a matter of survival.
Why than VeriSign wants to compete with its channel. The
answer is very simple - tight supply of names. The free market rules do not apply
in monopoly markets or markets with tight supply. Of course they will compete with
their channel in a monopoly market. If you ask them they don't want the channel at
all. This is the nature of the beast called business - it becomes nice and smiles
when it feels the competition. Otherwise it is ugly beast and our contracts with
VeriSign prove it (but this is another story).
In order to fight the beast the
society developed the regulatory agencies to regulate businesses where the monopoly
is inevitable.
Fortunately, we have much better chances with the domain names.
It is not gas, oil, telecommunications or power, which is heavy, hard to move with
a high barrier to entry. It is easy. Our calculations show that $3 to $5 million
in funding can easily put new registries and new domains in business, thus creating
competition for the ten year old monopoly .com 44 applicants showed
up ready to invest the above amount and to start operations, in November, 2000. Only
7 got lucky to be selected by ICANN.
Everything will come to its place if there
would be 50 + competing top level domains. Than VeriSign will respect its channel
and will never compete with it. Than the people of Tuvalu can enjoy their own country
domain .tv and be proud of it. Than there will be no secondary and third and forth
etc. roots. Than there will be stability of the Internet. Until than we live in the
Wonderland
ruled by ICANN.
" Fury said to a mouse,
That he met in the house,
"Let us
both go to law: I will
prosecute you.
Come, I'll take no denial;
We
must have a trial:
For really this morning I've
nothing to do."
Said
the mouse to the cur,
"Such a trial, dear Sir,
With no jury or judge,
would
be wasting our breath."
"I'll be judge, I'll be jury,"
Said cunning
old Fury:
"I'll try the whole cause,
and condemn you to death."'
Lewis Carroll
Alice adventures in Wonderland
Best regards and good luck,
I.V.