[ga] Anti-competitiveness and existing SnapBack holders

[George Kirikos <gkirikos@yahoo.com>]

Hello,

In a previous post, I've identified at least 8 groups of existing
competitors to SnapNames, who make offerings in the deleted names
arena. [NameWinner, NicGenie, IARegistry, eNom, AWRegistry, Signature
Domains, INWW, OnlineNic, AddressCreation, AllDomains, EastCom,
PayCenter, ExpireFish]

Please confirm:

1) Whether clients of these companies and others will have an equal
opportunity of purchasing a WLS name, or if in fact existing SnapBack
holders will be grandfathered and automatically get the WLS. If the
existing SnapBack holder of a premium domain that is currently on hold
(i.e. supposed to be deleted) now has a certainty at getting a
"Cheerleaders.com" or "Beijing.com" quality name (those are examples of
premium names that were caught by competitors of SnapNames in the past)
how is this not a windfall for grandfathered SnapBack holders? Won't
the above groups of competitors suffer financial loss, due to their
inability to secure those premium names, and instead have to settle for
a $1 or $2 margin on a WLS subscription, which they may or may not get?

2) If in the alternative SnapBack holders are not being grandfathered,
please document when the "Landrush" period will occur, and what
mechanism will be used in this Landrush to allocate the WLS positions.
Since this is a change of the "rules of the game" in mid-stream,
affecting all competitors in the Expired Names community, I presume
that there would be a Landrush period, and I would like to begin my
preparations for it.

3) Given that there is a flourishing market with consumer choice in the
Expired Names industry, how will this proposal promote competition for
consumers, many of whom have already voted with their feet and have
used non-Snap-Names type models? For instance, some existing models
have no fee if a name is not acquired, whereas a consumer under the WLS
proposal would not be able to get a refund if that name is renewed.

4) Have you considered applying this "test-bed" only to dot-net names,
as proof of concept? Why does the test-bed have to include dot-com
names, if only wants to prove that this system may or may not work, and
then report back to ICANN? If it's only an experiment, I do not see why
it need apply to all both dot-com, as you can get ample empirical data
from dot-net alone.

5) Will WLS subscriptions ordered in the final two months of the test
bed be honoured for an entire year? (thus making this "experiment" 2
years, instead of 1)

6) Why is data only being sampled in the final 2 months of this
proposal (See paragraph 2 of the introduction), where the more
interesting data would seem to occur at the beginning of the
experiment, when presumably the Land Rush will occur?

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.kirikos.com/

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