[NCSG-Discuss] new-gtld-committee-not-sure-how-to-handle-closed-generic-applications

[Dan Krimm]

>From an economic-policy perspective, the issue would be the potential of
setting up an artificial and unnecessary, but significant, barrier to entry
to a market in the long run.

So the question is: does ownership of a TLD enable significant control over
access to a market (perhaps for "rent-seeking" purposes)?

One might argue that if a registry were to place onerous costs on using
SLDs within its TLD (perhaps also creating artificial scarcity in the
process), there would be more registrants who would not find it cost
effective to use that TLD, and would "route around" by using other more
"open" TLDs.  As long as such competition from other TLDs remains robust, a
closed registry might shoot itself in the foot by making itself irrelevant
(or perhaps it has completely different purposes with no relation to the
market one might assume it would use the TLD for).

I can imagine a situation where a registry with high costs of registration
might bifurcate a market into an "elite/luxury" sector (using the TLD)
versus a "popular" sector (continuing to use alternative open TLDs such as
.com unless and until they grow to a level that the TLD costs are no longer
unaffordable).  Is this a problem?  Maybe you would expect to pay more for
your products from a company that uses the elite TLD, whereas you might get
a better deal from a company that still uses .com or something else.

My ultimate question is: is there any empirical evidence that informs this
issue one way or another?

Dan


--
Any opinions expressed in this message are those of the author alone and do
not necessarily reflect any position of the author's employer.



At 12:05 AM -0500 2/7/13, McTim wrote:
>On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 10:36 PM, Carl Smith <lectriclou at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Milton,
>>
>> I have a problem with generic words being owned
>
>I don't see these words being "owned" at all.
>
>Running a registry is not the same as owning a word.
>
>Besides, who is to say what is a generic word or not?
>
>In short, I agree with MM here.
>
>--
>Cheers,
>
>McTim
>"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
>route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel
>
>
>by some individual or etc..
>> For example, hypothetically, suppose that in the phone book, the first John
>> Smith was the only one in the world who could be allowed to use John Smith
>> in any phone book and by extension in any other listing of phone numbers.
>> How many John Smiths would be prohibited from having the equal right to list
>> their own given name in possibly any way?  If we are still  intent on using
>> generics, we would need some kind of delimiter to differentiate between
>> others who should have the right to use the common language they know and
>> understand.  In this case, only one specific delimiter would need be unique.
>> That delimiter should be the only thing owned to identify the specific
>> individual.  With the postal system, for instance, the address.  Some people
>> own an address.  Often the address may be rented or least.  But the complete
>> address is the only unique entity involved and not each of the generic words
>> of which it is composed.  The ownership of words will certainly lead to
>> commercial oppression of individuals all over the world.  Let us look to a
>> wider picture of circumstances of what we do lest we find a huge problem in
>> the future.  Commercial interest's greatest wet dream is to have a monopoly.
>> Is that what we are willing to accept?
>>
>> Lou
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2/6/2013 3:15 PM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> I stand ready to be educated by those with different views.
>>
>>
>>
>> OK. Here is a different view.
>>
>>
>>
>> It is not a free speech issue at all. It is a vertical integration or
>> business  model issue, exclusively. Some registries want to create a
>> specific image or environment inside a particular TLD. Those registries are
>> not trying to sell domain name registrations per se, they are selling or
>> doing other things with the domain, perhaps even giving domains away to
>> promote a service. They might also use their authority to control
>> registrations to prevent speculators from grabbing all the "good" names, or
>> to impose a taxonomy on the second level, or to prevent undesirable types
>> from squatting or tarnishing the overall image of the domain.
>>
>>
>>
>> Other registries want to maximize the number of registrations under a TLD.
>> In that case, it makes sense to be "open". In other words, if you are a
>> registrar and want to sell hundreds of thousands or millions of domains to
>> whoever will buy them for whatever reason, then you want "open" or FCFS
>> TLDs.
>>
>>
>>
>> Not surprisingly, the real push for "open" and against "closed" TLDs is
>> coming from traditional registrars who want all the potentially popular
>> domains to be available for them to exploit as registrars. The free speech
>> and competition policy claims are pure diversions.
>>
>>
>>
>> Take .BOOK for example. If someone wants to open that up for anyone on a
>> first-come, first-served basis, there are advantages and disadvantages.
>> Sure, I could register networksandstates.book in an open domain, if I wanted
>> to. But someone else might register it before me, or someone might register
>> nonfiction.books (so there's that "terrible" appropriation of a generic term
>> again). Wrose, 600 different link farms might appropriate other generic
>> terms (sex.books, good.books) and just pile pay per click ads onto them, so
>> that anyone using the domain would never know whether a specific domain was
>> useful or just a commercial diversion.
>>
>>
>>
>> I don't think it's ICANN's job to say that either one of these business
>> models is the right one. I think there is an important place for both
>> models, and the proper decision maker to decide which one to use is the
>> person who risked about $1 million to get the domain and operate it.
>>
>>
>>
>> The competition policy claims are especially laughable, because unless you
>> confuse the market for books with the market for names under .book, it is
>> obvious that possession of the latter does not do anything to give you
>> monopoly control of the former.
>>
>>
>>
>> Likewise, I don't see the freedom issue here. In fact, freedom of expression
>> and property rights are mutually reinforcing in this case. If I register a
>> domain like .IGP and want to use it to push a particular topic or point of
>> view, it's my right NOT to allow, say, advocates of Scientology to register
>> domains under IGP. If I have to lend my domain to promotion of causes and
>> ideas I don't support, my freedom of association and expression rights are
>> being restricted.
>>
>>
>>
>> Edward, you have a domain under USC.EDU. USC is not obliged, on free speech
>> grounds, to allow me to register a name under their domain. This is not a
>> restriction of my right of free speech so much as it is an extension of
>> USC's right of free association and free speech. There are plenty of domains
>> to accommodate diverse views.
>>
>>
>>
>> Generic words in the SLD space have been registered - and restricted to what
>> their owners want them to do - for more than a decade. I don't see how TLD
>> vs SLD changes the issue in any relevant way. Would you contend that your
>> right to freedom of expression is restricted because you can't register
>> <foo>.book.com? If not, why is it a restriction to not be allowed to
>> register  <foo>.book? I think we would both probably agree that if someone
>> else registers book.com before me, then I don't have any right to use the
>> domain book.com. Why is it any different for .book?
>>
>>
>>
>> Remember, new domains are NOT .com; i.e., they have no monopoly power or
>> lock in power on existing registrants. No one has to use them or register in
>> them.
>>
>>
>>
>>