Re: 71% or so of .COM registrants are Americans: Right!

[Jim Dixon <jdd@matthew.uk1.vbc.net>]

On Thu, 11 Dec 1997, Mark Henderson-Thynne wrote:

> >By "european" do you mean Europe in the wider sense (which includes 
> >all of Eastern Europe and much of the old Soviet Union) or the European 
> >Union?
> 
> My definition of europe in relation to my figures included all of the 
> eurpoean landmass as far east as, but not including the former USSR
> republics as well as UK, Ireland and Iceland.

Figures for just the 15 states of the European Union proper would be very 
useful.  
 
> >Two more minor points: "ownership" is in my opinion a dubious notion
> >in this context, and in any case the address in the whois database 
> >for a domain has no definite relationship with the domain name.  So if
> >you have a current and authoritative copy of the database and if these
> >numbers are an accuarate reflection of that database, the numbers
> >are very helpful, but we must remember that they remain a bit fuzzy.
> 
> The country data is based upon the data stored for "Organisation using
> domain name" section 3 of the InterNIC database, it in no way relates
> to admin tech contacts etc, just the organisation who have entered into a 
> contract with the InterNIC regarding the domain name.

Yes.  This address data is not verified.  

> I have produced accurate figures based upon a true copy of the available
> data. Do you still argue that 97% of .coms are owned by Americans?.

No.  But then I never did.  For one thing, I avoid the use of the word
"owned"; I question the applicability of this concept.  I said something 
similar to "something like 97% of .COM domains are registered to domain 
name holders in the US and Canada".  This was and still is my 
recollection of Tony Rutkowski's figures.  

As I said earlier, these numbers were discussed when I was on the other
side of the fence.  I was arguing that NSI was a monopoly and one in 
relation to which the European Union had a right to speak.  Quoting a 
European Commission official, I said that 17% of .COM registrants were 
in the European Union.  Tony said that the fraction was much lower.  Our 
analysis of a sample taken from the .COM zone file seemed to prove Tony 
right and me wrong.

The experience of discussing issues like this with proponents of the 
gTLD MOU and CORE has made me reconsider my evaluation of the 
relative merits of CORE and NSI.  Yes, Network Solutions is a monopoly
that claims copyright over the com/net/org database and has stupid,
blind, offensive policies.  Unfortunately the MOUvement seems to be 
claiming to have rights over all gTLDs -- a larger claim than NSI at
its worst has ever made -- and certainly can be equally stupid, blind, 
and offensive.

So why prefer one over the other?  Let's adopt your figures instead of
Tony's.  There simply isn't that much difference between them.  The
overwhelming majority of .COM registrants are American or Canadian,
and their interest should be paramount in determining whether the .COM
registry is moved.

What would make most sense is a real compromise: let CORE run its 
seven new gTLDs out of Geneva.  Require NSI to open up its registry,
so that the InterNIC would become a second shared gTLD registry.  Then
let them compete for a while.  This would give us some variety and 
an increase in resilience.  The competition would also do both good.

--
Jim Dixon                                                 Managing Director
VBCnet GB Ltd                http://www.vbc.net        tel +44 117 929 1316
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