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Username: BrianC
Date/Time: Sun, October 15, 2000 at 7:24 AM GMT
Browser: Netscape Communicator V4.75 using Windows 98
Score: 5
Subject: The facts

Message: 		 

 
Because each member of Afilias owns a 5.263% stake in Afilias, each member is entitled to 5.263% of the profits. There is no trickery there. It's no different than if each member company was actually a single person. By AdvantaTel's logic, IOD would have to pay $200,000 because the IOD corporation has 4 members.

According to the Afilias application, every ICANN-accredited registrar will have the opportunity to register domains in the new TLD from day one. This means that not only will the registrar divisions of the Afilias members be able to sell the domains, but all ICANN-accredited registrars will be able to sell them. This is a sound system that results in maximum competition in the market from day one and will mean that registrars will be able to compete based on a number of factors, including price.

IOD's system is somewhat similar. According to the IOD application, after an unstated amount of time, all ICANN-accredited registrars will be allowed to register .web names through the IOD .web registry. IOD will form its own registrar division so that IOD will be able to generate revenues at both the registry and registrar levels, just as the member companies of Afilias will be able to do. The difference between the IOD and Afilias systems is that for an unstated amount of time after .web goes live, IOD will be the only company able to register .web names. If anybody will be running a monopoly, it would actually be IOD during that initial period. While we can only guess at why IOD has planned to be the only company able to register .web names during that initial period, it would seem to me that they are doing it in part to make as much money as they can from the initial rush to register.

Another drawback to the IOD plan is that EVERY registrar will have to charge $35 for a .web domain ($15 at the registry level, $20 at the registrar level). This will make it impossible for companies to compete on the basis of price.

When it comes down to it, Afilias actually has a plan that will foster more competition than IOD's plan and I'm sure this is one of the things that ICANN will take into consideration when it makes its decision. However, I do believe that IOD has the advantage in other areas of their application, including the fact that they've been working on their system for nearly 5 years.

I fail to see how these lies and false accusations against Afilias by IOD supporters are going to do any good for IOD. It will be hard for ICANN to pay much respect to the arguments presented by an individual when that individual has made blatantly false statements.
 

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