Re: Conflict resolution?

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

Christopher Ambler allegedly said:
> 
> >>The important idea is that *all* iTLD delegations from the IANA (or
> >>whoever) are non-exclusive.  This would get us away from the corrosive
> >>idea that iTLDs are "hot properties".
> 
> > I'd just like to strongly support what Kent has said here -- it would
> > seem to me that a large majority of the "discussions" over the
> > creation of new domains could be resolved by simply making the
> > following statement:
> 
> > _ALL_ top level domains _MUST_ be shared
> 
> I must disagree in the strongest possible terms. Our business plan, at the
> least, is based on the commercial viability of the .WEB property, for which
> IANA accepted an application pending completion of procedure. While we may
> argue the technical legalities of promises made, the bottom line is that
> mandating all TLDs to be shared is unfair for two very good reasons:

When it gets right down to it, fairness to you and the others
who wish to make money through ownership of TLDs isn't an issue the
IAHC should worry about.  Their primary responsibility should be to 
determine the best possible solution for the best functioning of the 
net. 

> 1. NSI retains exclusive use of .COM, .NET and .ORG through 1998, and even
>   after that point, has had an unfair trade advantage in having exclusive
>   use of them to date. Perhaps, if this procedure had been put in place
>   over a year ago, rather than letting the current IANA TLD applications
>   sit, things would be different. Now, it's just too late. I'm sorry if
>   this business aspect goes against the personal worldviews of some of
>   the participants here, but the cold hard fact is that this is now a
>   situation in which large amounts of money are in the balance.

NSI's advantage could be nullified by making a rule that no single
registry could serve more than 3 TLDs.  I don't like this rule, 
personally -- I just bring it up to point out that there are many 
possible solutions to that problem.

But I'm not convinced it is a serious problem.  I would like to see 
registries compete on price and service, not ownership of TLDs.  If 
you can't compete on that basis, there is no particular gain to the 
net as a whole of allowing you in the market in the first place.

> 2. IANA has accepted applications for TLDs, and has stated publically that
>   prior use should be a deciding factor, as well as making a number of
>   statements and promises that must be kept. This seems to be quite a
>   point of contention, however.

I think would be pretty obvious to an impartial outsider that the IANA
was doing their valiant best to keep from making promises, while you
and others have been doing your best to pressure them into it -- a
sterling example is that occasion when you tried to force them to
accept money. 

> I believe that sharing an iTLD should be OPTIONAL, and not mandated for,
> at least, these two reasons.

But the fundamental reason is that it destroys your scheme for making 
lots of money on the net.  (There is nothing wrong with making lots of 
money on the net, of course.  But we certainly don't owe it to you.)

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov		the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   B6 04 CC 30 9E DE CD FE  6A 04 90 BB 26 77 4A 5E