[ga] WLS referred to the DNSO; WLS & competition

[Thomas Roessler <roessler@does-not-exist.org>]

According to  
<http://www.icann.org/minutes/prelim-report-22apr02.htm>, the WLS  
proposal has been referred to the DNSO for comment.

I'd suggest that the GA tries to dig out those arguments which are  
actually reliable, and compiles an "official" position, this time.


Here's one possible argument which hasn't come up, yet, I think.   
Maybe my thinking is flawed - if so, please point it out. 

Consider any registrar who has hoarded expired domain names.  Such a 
registrar could wait for WLS subscriptions being made through it.   
Once a WLS subscription for a hoarded domain name is there, the  
domain could be relased - and immediately re-registered through the  
same registrar, due to the WLS subscription.  If a WLS subscription 
is made through a different registrar, nothing happens.

Rumor of this could be expected to quickly spread in the community:  
If you want to back-order a domain name which has expired, but is  
not available, go to the old registrar for your WLS subscription.


Ultimately, this approach to selling off hoarded domain names (which 
would be economically quite attractive at least to Verisign, and - 
at sufficiently high WLS prices - possibly also for other  
registrars) could lead to a _significant_ increase in the cost for  
registering an expired domain.  It would also skew competition  
between registrars as far as registrations of these domains are  
concerned - effectively, potential registrants would be forced to go 
to the "old" registrar.


The conclusion from this scenario is to hold up WLS until the  
hoarding problem has been solved.

-- 
Thomas Roessler                          http://log.does-not-exist.org/
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