Re: Monopoly/Ologopoly

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

Perry E. Metzger allegedly said:
> 
> 
> Kent Crispin writes:
> > This homogenization almost completely
> > negates one of the principles of the draft, that the primary
> > competition is between TLDs. 
> 
> Competition between TLDs is not one of our primary principles. Overall
> competition is certainly desirable, but competition between TLDs is
> not the only way to achieve that. Making sure that all gTLDs are
> ultimately open to all registrars also achieves competition.

Your are probably sick of looking at the draft, but perhaps you should
reread it.  From section 3.1, "Whether to Create New gTLDS":

"IAHC has decided to create further gTLDs as a means of
increasing the level of competitive supply and access to the
gTLD space for the global Internet community."

"In addition IAHC has decided to ensure that the new gTLDs 
are all to be operated in a shared fashion across a number
of domain operators. This is regarded as a secondary
mechanism to ensure that each of these additional gTLDs are
operated in an environment of a competitive market for   
access to these name spaces, and the same checks and
balances of the competitive inter-gTLD access space also
apply to the intra-gTLD space through this mechanism."

Competition *between* TLDs is cited as the *primary* reason for 
creating new gTLDs.  Sharing is explicitly noted as a *secondary* 
form of competition.

As you know, I am a strong advocate of shared TLDs.  But I also think
there is a real advantage to allowing meaningful competition between
TLDs. 


-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov		the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   5A 16 DA 04 31 33 40 1E  87 DA 29 02 97 A3 46 2F