To Members of ICANNAs I read the political banter
on this site, I fear that the cries of a manic few will deter swift and necessary
action on the part of ICANN. The proposed deal with Verisign (admittedly a
large holding in our fund complex) is a decent, but not great, deal for both parties.
In this investor's opinion, it is a reasonable and pragmatic compromise.
Our "best
case" scenario was a delay in implementing the prior agreement such that most of
the Registrar competition would go bankrupt, forcing ICANN to crawl back to Verisign
with a sweetheart deal. Under the current market conditions, one would have
to bet that most competing registrars are in serious trouble -- the best capitalized
pureplay competitor, Register.com, sports an anemic market capitzlation of $240 million.
While
some will cry foul citing government mismanagement or anti-competitive implications,
both ICANN and Verisign have no choice but to do it. $35/year for a protectable
piece of ineternet real estate is a great deal for the buyer. Should we burn
a lot of brain cells trying to get this to $25 or even $10. Who cares?
Most serious buyers of domain names would gladly pay $100/year or more.
Personally,
I believe ICANN is so conerned with how the public might view ICANN "perpetuating
Verisign's monopoly" that it is ignoring the most fundamental element of the Registry
function: it is a scale business providing a critical service to internet users
at close to throw away prices. If it ain't broke, why are we so terribly concerned
about fixing it?
We are "fixing it" because letting Verisign continue in its present
role without penalty or punishment -- elements of the current proposed deal -- would
subject ICANN to abuse by a few, but very loud, interested parties. So we have
the proprosed deal. Not best for either party. Not best for internet
users. But acceptable. The internet world already has enough uncertainty
to deal with. You folks at ICANN are in charge. Please act like it.
P.S.
Mr. Auerbach sound like the whiney second grader who wants only to be at the head
of the lunch line.