Re: [ga] WLS

["John Berryhill Ph.D. J.D." <john@johnberryhill.com>]

Chuck,

I will have fuller comments on this later, but there are some things you've
said here that I don't understand.

From: "Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes@verisign.com>
> The WLS will not eliminate direct selling of names, name auctions for
> existing names, etc.
>

Who said it would, and what do any of these things have to do with WLS
eliminating the mix of different services available for registering expiring
names?

The WLS will not eliminate night baseball, frozen waffles, or teen pregnancy
either, but so what?

What it will eliminate is ANY hope of registering an expiring name if someone
beats you to the one and only WLS slot for that name, and it will eliminate
any incentive or any other system for attempting to get that name.  That's
what the discussion here is about - the elimination of competition and
choice.

> > 3.  From the consumer perspective, the WLS as proposed will
> > provide one, and
> > only one, person with certainty that they will become the
> > registrant of an
> > expiring domain name.

> As you well know, that is the reality of the DNS.

I know no such thing.  You are confusing _a priori_ probability with _ex
posteriori_ probability here, and you well know the difference.

Under WLS, whomever gets the WLS slot will get the name.  Period.

There is no "reality of the DNS" under which anyone knows with certainty that
they will become the registrant of an expiring name.  Yes, the day
afterwards, we all know which competitor registered the name.  But you are
proposing a system where either one person has the WLS slot and WILL BE
CERTAIN to get the name, or one can go pound sand because there is no other
choice or incentive to try.  "No domain for you".

Under the present system, there is a choice between SnapNames, Namewinner,
etc.  And because you seem to be unable to find these services, perhaps it is
worthwhile to point out that people found the AT&T breakup to be confusing
also.  Heck, I still don't know what all my telephone service options are.
That is a sign of a competitive market.  Yes, a monopoly service offers the
convenience of one place to go in order to obtain the uniform quality
monopoly service.  Making the service an MLM between the registry and the
registrars does not change that fact.

Enom:
http://www.enom.com/services.asp
Purchase "dropped" names. Grab a name as soon as the registry releases it.

DNS Research:
http://www.dnsresearch.com/monitor.htm
DNS Research, Inc. will attempt to register all of your desired "soon to
expire" domain names on your behalf the millisecond they are released from
the shared registry system.

Obviously, if you wait for these people to come to your door and introduce
themselves, then you will remain unaware of them.  But if you go looking for
them, it is remarkably possible to find them.  Some of them even use
techniques such as "advertising" to promote their competitive businesses.

> Please elaborate on the consumer choice that is available today.  What
> specifically are the choices?

I have listed four above.  How many choices do you want?  Do I have
comprehensive knowledge of the market?  No.  But I imagine one can poke
around enough registrar websites and find them, based on the full thirty
seconds I spent with Google.

> How does a consumer find the choices?

By looking for them.  How many different companies offer local telephone
service in your area, Chuck?   How do you find them?  How does anyone find
anything they want when there are various competitors offering services?

How does a consumer find registrar choices right now?

How do I look up a word in the dictionary if I don't know how to spell it?
Lord help me, I'm a confused consumer.

> What
> will the consumer have to pay if he/she is successful?  How easy is it?

Ah... the pricing models ARE different.  No, there is no fixed monopoly
price.  And there are probably different levels of ease involved.  These
again are signs of competitive services.   The fact that there is no single
answer to these two questions of yours effectively answers Mr. Sims'
question.

That's right - the current system is unpredictable and does not have uniform
pricing structures nor uniform ease.  Yes, we all understand that the WLS
will provide uniformity.  Mr. Sims' question was about how the WLS proposal
would affect market heterogeneity.  You have now answered his question.  WLS
will quack, walk, and swim like a monopoly service - and one you want to
position as a "natural monopoly" by your statement that "only the registry"
can provide the characteristic certainty and uniformity of result.

My neighbor is trying to find a real estate agent to sell his house, and NONE
of the agents he has interviewed has been able to tell him (a) how long will
it take you to sell my house and (b) what price will you get.  I'll bet if we
had some version of a quasi-socialist real estate market, he'd get the same
answer from every one of them.

But the way the real world works is like this - if you want something badly
enough, then your ability to get it is determined by what you are willing to
pay for it and how hard you are willing to try, and not by your ability to
stand in line to get it.  I know we've all been busy, but surely some people
noticed something about the Berlin Wall coming down a couple of years back.

> Everyone continues to make these broad generalizations but nobody puts
> forward any measurable data to support them.

Measurable data:

1 - At least 50%, which you admit, and probably more, of SnapNames snapbacks
are held by bulk customers.

2 - Snapbacks cost $69 and are uncertain.

3 - If Snapbacks were certain, they would be worth even more to the same bulk
customers.

4 - These data indicate that WLS slots, at the price ranges which have been
kicked around, will result in an increased favorable environment for domain
name registrants whom everyone seems to deplore.

5 - How is the relatively naive customer who wants a single domain name
favored by your proposal, which based on the measurable data you have put
forth, will disfavor that type of customer more strongly than the current
environment?

Changing the rules will change the game.  It will not change the result.
Which, if you think about it Chuck, should remove that suspicion that I have
some kind of bias here.  I don't.  I am not going to shed a tear after WLS is
put into place, and next year everyone is whining about how some clever folk
have figured out how to game it, and the "common folk" can't get the names
they want.  Experts have a way of being, you know, experts.  The *only* thing
WLS will change is how the money gets distributed.  And that's what makes
this debate fun, since between you and I, only one person is getting paid to
participate.

I still haven't gotten a single answer to the question, "If we go to a system
where expiring domain names are registered with certainty to the first comer
on the WLS list, what makes that more 'fair' than the present circumstances?"
And, before whining time rolls around next year, I want it to be clear that
everybody said WLS was going to be "fair".

The only things I hear are personal stories of people who tried one or
another technique, and did not get the domain name they wanted.  The naive,
narcissitic, and solipsistic belief inherent in that argument is that they
are divinely blessed and would have gotten to the WLS slot first, had one
been available.  I guarantee you - in fact I promise you - that in a system
where "being first to the WLS slot" is the determining factor, then there are
people who are going to become VERY good at being first to the WLS slot.

And I want to be present to see an executive get in front of his shareholders
and say, "We introduced a new service this year, and we set the price high
enough to discourage high volume customers, because we believed that having a
lot of orders for this service just wouldn't be fair."

Please invite me to that shareholder meeting.  Because I want to watch those
sell orders hit Wall Street faster than domain registration attempts at
registry drop time.



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