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

[James Love]

Rob,

1.    If you want to get a low price for the .org registry, award the
registry contract to the firm that offers the lowest price in a competitive
procurement.  This is fine with us.  I don't think this has been done before
in ICANN.

2.  If you don't award the contract on the basis of the low bid, you are
basically giving someone or some group a contract worth millions.  .Org has
a large installed base.  If ICANN sets the maximum price at a particular
number, such as $5 or $6 per year, I am confident that the winning bid for
the contract in a competitive auction would be greater than zero.   What
makes you think the market clearing price would be zero?

3.  If nothing is done on the basis of the prices that firms bid, you are
just finding a way to award your friends a lucrative contract.   This is a
not something new in the world.  Some government have been forced to adopt
rules on procurements after predictable stories about kickbacks, bribes and
favoritism.  Maybe here we will have to have some well documented corruption
before we can have procurement system that is less subject to such abuses.
I'm not suggesting the big bucks spent on various consultants and lawyers to
curry favor with ICANN constitute bribes or improper payments, but one has
to ask, is this the right way to do business at ICANN?

  Jamie

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Courtney" <rob at cdt.org>
To: "James Love" <love at cptech.org>
Cc: "ncc" <discuss at icann-ncc.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2002 10:23 AM
Subject: Re: [ncdnhc-discuss] taking politics out of the .org delegation


> 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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