rebidding TLDs

[Milton Mueller]

Danny:
This issue was discussed pretty extensively prior to your joining the
constituency. In particular, the position was established 6 or so months
ago and a long public discussion was held at the Marrakech meeting.

Mawaki is therefore authorized to note your dissent, but the
constituency position is set as in 4.4 below.

Happy to carry on the discussion with you, though.

A renewal expectancy is the best way to provide suppliers of registry
services with the incentive to invest in fixed infrastructure with
nonrecoverable costs, and to invest in and preserve the value of their
TLD name. If a supplier does not have those incentives, there will be a
stronger tendency to seek short-term profits out of the TLD.

Here's the key argument from an NCUC point of view. Suppose
organization X comes up with an idea for a noncommercial TLD -- let's
call it .free.
After years of losing money, and sticking with it and getting a
community to cohere around that TLD, ICANN puts it up for competitive
bid. The company loses it to VeriSign, because with their estalbished
infrastructure and economies of scale they can under bid the originator
by, say, 5 cents a name.

That doesn't sound fair or right to me -- the people who had the idea
ought to be able to benefit from it when it succeeds, over the long
term. The TLD shouldn't be taken away from them simply because some
other operator says they can do it slightly better. The only reason to
lose it should be some major problem.

Another aspect of this is that competitive bids are just promises.
Execution of those promises cannot be guaranteed. If the re-bids are
pure auctions, in which price is the ONLY deciding variable, then
service might suffer. If you try to take service and non-price variables
into account, then you are running tens of beauty contests every year as
the number of new TLDs expands. No thanks.

The rebid fuss is rreally all about certain companies' desire -- or
should I say lust-- to get .com away from VeriSign. That's a hunt we
have no dog in. Don't drag us into it.

There is a lot of economic literature on rebidding contracts or
exclusive franchises. I suggest you explore it.

4.4	There should be renewal expectancy.  A contract
would be renewed provided that the license holder is
not in material breach of the contract, or has not
been found in repeated non-performance of the
contract, and provided the license holder agrees to
the any new framework contract conditions that are
reasonably acceptable.    Any new framework contract
would take into account the consensus policies in
place at that time.

I do not favor presumptive renewal having noted the
benefits of re-bids (that served to significantly
lower the .net registry fees).

There are registries (such as .pro) that are neither
in material breach of their contracts nor are engaged
in repeated contract non-performance that nevertheless
should be re-bid in that the current sponsoring
organization has not properly served its respective
community -- .pro for example has only 4628 domains
under management; see
http://www.icann.org/tlds/monthly-reports/pro/registrypro-200605.pdf

The broader community, in thousands of comments
tendered on the .com, .biz, .info and .org registry
contract proposals, has signaled overwhelming
opposition to the concept of presumptive renewal.

I would appreciate hearing the views of the
constituency on this topic.  In my view the community
gains when contracts are put out for re-bid.  I
believe in the merits of the competition and would
argue that they outweigh presumptive rights for
incumbent registries.

best regards,
Danny

--- Mawaki Chango <ki_chango at YAHOO.COM> wrote:

> Attached, the "Amsterdam report" in progress from
> the staff.
> Constructive and focused comments are welcome.
>
> Mawaki
>
> --- Liz Williams <liz.williams at icann.org> wrote:
>
> > To: gtld-council at gnso.icann.org
> > From: Liz Williams <liz.williams at icann.org>
> > Subject: [gtld-council] GNSO PDP Dec 05:  Draft
> Recommendations
> > Summary
> > Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 15:31:51 +0200
> >
> >
> > Colleagues
> >
> > Please find attached a DRAFT Recommendations
> Summary.  It is a
> > working document which will be refined and
> completed as the
> > Committee's Final Report is prepared.
> >
> > If you have comments or questions, please come
> back to me.  I would
> >
> > appreciate very much specific editing or
> contextual changes --
> > please
> > identify the recommendation number you are
> referring to send me
> > specific text.  I will collate all the comments
> from the group and
> >
> > work out the best way forward.  I have read all
> the comments which
> >
> > have been circulating on the many lists and will
> work towards
> > incorporating those where there is majority
> agreement.
> >
> > I will have this document posted as a working
> document on the GNSO
> >
> > website.
> >
> > Kind regards and, of course, any questions please
> ask.
> >
> > Liz
> >
> > >
>
.....................................................
> >
> > Liz Williams
> > Senior Policy Counselor
> > ICANN - Brussels
> > +32 2 234 7874 tel
> > +32 2 234 7848 fax
> > +32 497 07 4243 mob
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>


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