[ncdnhc-discuss] taking politics out of the .org delegation

[Rob Courtney]

At 12:01 PM -0500 3/4/02, James Love wrote:
>To those working on the .org, issue, I would like to expand upon comments we
>have offered in off-line discussions and in some written comments we have
>made in various fora, including on the .us redelegation, as it relates to
>how one addresses the potential windfall when someone suddenly is given the
>right to run an existing TLD registry that has potentially a signficant
>economic value.
>
>One approach would be to award the contact to the low bidder, subject to
>constraints such as not letting Verisign bid, to promote competition
>objectives.  But if people were not comfortable with awarding a contract to
>the low bidder, fearing some unsustainable lowballing strategy that would
>fail and end up in renegotiation, one might set a maximum registry price
>(the current ICANN practice), and then award the registry bid to the company
>that offered the highest bid (probably best in cash, but perhaps something
>else, such as a royalty from future revenues, maybe capped at some $$$
>number the firm bids).
>
>The competitive market would then set the market clearing price of the
>opportunity to run the TLD, and there would not be a ton of politics in
>terms of who gets it.
>
>Next, you would have to deal with the surplus.

Are we certain there would be a surplus?

There might be a substantial benefit to non-commercial organizations 
if the retail price of a .org registration was cut substantially, 
closer to cost, rather than charging a higher price in order to run a 
surplus/profit.

I only raise it because a lot of people talk about .org as a cash cow 
when it might not be one.

r

-- 

Rob Courtney
Policy Analyst
Center for Democracy & Technology
1634 Eye Street NW, Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20006
202 637 9800
fax 202 637 0968
rob at cdt.org
http://www.cdt.org/

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