Re: Good Monopolies/Bad Monopolies

["David R. Conrad" <davidc@apnic.net>]

>> If IAHC grants an EXCLUSIVE license to MY registry for ONLY .law, and grants
>> another exclusive license to YOUR registry for .legal, and grants another
>> exclusive license to JOE'S registry for .atty, then those Internet users
>> interested in a law related gTLD will find as much competition among the
>> three registries as we find among WENDY's MacDONALD's and BURGER KING.
>The problem with this model is that it doesn't serve the interests of the
>*user* community very well..

Exactly -- in fact, exclusive use provides a lovely opportunity for a
form of blackmail.  Suppose, the TLD .AUTO is created.  Car companies
would then likely go and register their trademarks in that domain.
Now suppose .CAR is created.  How much will Ford pay to have
MUSTANG.CAR registered (in addition to MUSTANG.AUTO)?  I submit that
the amount they'd be willing to pay depends on how much they figure it
would cost in lawyer time to fight off somebody else registering it.
The "owner" of the .CAR TLD can then guesstimate that cost and charge
accordingly -- they are a monopoly so Ford would either have to pay
what the .CAR "owner" demands or pay their lawyers to defend their
trademarks.  In a shared case, competition among registrars for a TLD
means that competition will drive the charges for registering down to
the level of the costs -- there is no "monopoly surcharge".

However, I would note that

>[the user community wants] to be able to find things quickly and in
>an intuitive way. One thing which would help that effort enormously is
>to have one and ONLY one gTLD name for each broad category of
>business.

is doomed to failure.  The broader the category of business, the more
possible registrants you will have, the higher the probability you
will have of name collision.  As has been stated zillions of times,
the DNS is not a directory system, it is a lookup service.

>> This is an example of multiple monopolies competing for marketshare the
>> same marketplace. If it works well in fostering competition among the fast
>> food monopolies, what rationale underlies the fear that it somehow won't
>> work with registries and gTLDs?

Your analogy is flawed.  The resources the fast food restaurants are
selling are shared -- they can all sell hamburgers, french fries, soft
drinks, etc.  They are selling essentially the same product (food),
just with different "packaging".  Exclusive TLDs are similar to a
situation in which _only_ McDonalds can sell hamburgers, Burger King
would have to come up with another food product to sell.

Regards,
-drc