RE: [wg-c] application documents requirements

["William X. Walsh" <william@userfriendly.com>]

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On 17-Mar-2000 Rick H Wesson wrote:
> 
> William,
> 
> I am not suggesting that there is consesnsus about sharing within this
> group,; however I point to the green/white paper and several years of

None of which specify that all new gTLDs should be shared.  

> many groups working to implement shared access to the current list of
> gTLDs.

Yes, the current gTLDs were a unique case.  New gTLDs were not coming anytime
soon, a long standing monopoly that had had a clear and significant impact on
the industry, and as a result action needed to be taken, as would be done in
any case where a monopoly was being broken.  But when actions are taken to
break a monopoly, those actions are normally NOT enforced against all of their
existing or potential competitors as well.

The sharing of com/net/org was required, simply because of the long time during
which NSI had not been required to compete in a truly competitive basis.  In a
fair and open process in which new gTLDs are encouraged, will require a high
level of competition between the registries.  This situation would be vastly
different, and there is absolutely no reason to enforce what is really a very
draconian measure against new competitors in this industry.  What you are
trying to do is really putting ICANN up as a monopoly, since ALL end user sales
of domain names are controlled by them through their accreditation process. 
This stifles competition, and innovation, that fresh new registries could bring
to this process.  Many of them will create their own "registrar" type system I
am sure.  There is no reason for their registrar systems to be under the
auspices of ICANN, however.   Unlike the NSI system, those registrar programs
will not have been created to break a monopoly practice and the major player in
the industry.
 
> I doubt there is a significant group of folks from any of those involved
> that wish to create new monopolies.

There are no new monopolies being created.  That would only happen if ICANN
only approved a very small number of new gTLDs and stopped letting new gTLDs be
introduced.  Your proposal would only make sense if that was the agenda of
ICANN.  If that is the case, then we have all wasted our time here, and let's
go home.  If we have acheived anything here, we have acheived the consensus,
however rough, that new gTLDs should continue to be introduced.

- --
William X. Walsh <william@userfriendly.com>
http://userfriendly.com/
Fax: 877-860-5412 or +1-559-851-9192
GPG/PGP Key at http://userfriendly.com/wwalsh.gpg
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