Re: registries and lotteries

["Joseph J. Kim" <jokim@server.Berkeley.EDU>]

> On Fri, 20 Dec 1996, Christopher Ambler wrote:
> > 
> > >    Noting its concern for managing change to a critical Internet
> > >    resource, IAHC believes that the number of additional Registrars
> > >    authorized in the next year should be limited to between twenty and
> > >    thirty, with additional Registrars added at the rate of twenty to
> > >    thirty per year, subject to an annual review of the efficient
> > >    functioning of the system.
> > 
> > This is clearly wrong. Not only are you creating an artificial barrier to
> > entry, but you're going to be excluding many companies that have been working
> > on this process since day one by a roll of the dice. Pointing out that they
> > can be in the lottery the next year, or that the limit will be removed once
> > NSI shares is irrelivant, as the first wave will have the market foothold.
> > 
> > Remove the lottery entirely, limit based solely on technical and business
> > ability, and we'll go from there.

I also agree with Chris that this system is unfair.  Obviously, by allowing
any number of registries we allow market forces to determine competitve
prices for domain name registration. In this scenario we have a similar
environment to isp consumer internet access (in the US) where prices have
been driven down to bare margins and the winner is the consumer. 

However, an argument for the other side would be that a huge number of new
registries may break whatever shared database mechanism the IAHC has in
mind... by the way what is the status on this thing?  Anyway, coordinating
between 20-30 companies is definitely more manageable than several hundreds
or thousands. 

So the tradeoff is unfairness vs. necessity.

-jjk