Re: [gnso-vi-feb10] Trondheim Board meeting briefing materials on VI

[Eric Brunner-Williams <ebw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Colleagues,

board-briefing-materials-2-25sep10-en.pdf, page 36 of 55, para 1

"The U.S. Supreme Court has characterized antitrust as a “consumer 
welfare prescription."
The quote is from R. Bork, The Antitrust Paradox 66 (1978), cited by 
the court in a passage on whether a consumer (a word understood to 
mean "the people of the United States as individuals") deprived of 
money by reason of allegedly anticompetitive conduct is injured in 
"property" within the meaning of § 4.
This seems a rather careless and casual reduction of antitrust over 
the century since the Clayton Act and the Sherman Act some thirty 
years earlier.


"In our view, ICANN policy towards the registries and registrars
should be focused exclusively upon consumer welfare."

Such a policy could be implemented by a return to the single source, 
non-competitive contract model that existed from 1985 to until the 
Defense Data Network NIC contract was awarded by DISA to Government 
Systems Inc., operationally transitioned (with complications) in May 1991.
The real cost of a domain-name-year is sub-dollar, and the cost-plus 
contract model of the pre-GSA period would create more consumer 
welfare (measured by unit cost) than any alternative.
I'm not advocating a return of the NIC contract to SRI, only pointing 
out that Salop and Wright don't actually advocate a policy that is 
"focused exclusively upon consumer welfare."

Eric