[NCUC-DISCUSS] Fwd: Results of the First New gTLD Auction | ICANN New gTLDs

Nicolas Adam nickolas.adam at gmail.com
Fri Jun 6 16:40:01 CEST 2014


I agree. In scarce + critical resource settings with a concentrated 
market (high HHI) it may be wise to limit certain players' access to 
auctions (who may value the resource for defensive purposes with 
competition-harming effects, think spectrum).

But here, I see no problem whatever. And I furthermore think that the 
namespace is a rather endless semiotic resource so ... unless there is 
evidence of great concentration and defensive moves foreclosing markets 
.... I think auctions are a good way to settle.

And I agree that as Non-comms we should be wary of exposing ourselves as 
ideologically anti-business per se.

Nicolas

On 06/06/2014 10:00 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:
>
> This is good example of why people often don't take civil society 
> seriously.
>
> You have here an incident in which a developing country bidder 
> (Beijing Tele-Info network) just outbid a well-established, incumbent 
> developed country company (Afilias). And Avri is moaning that an 
> auction discriminates against developing countries!
>
> We have direct evidence of the opposite of her claim. If this were 
> based on a beauty contest, on a discretionary board decision based on 
> <cough> "merit," who do you think would have won -- the incumbent with 
> strong ties to ICANN staff and board, or the developing country?
>
> Auctions are not a measure of "who has the most money," Auctions 
> measure who values something the most. I can have substantially less 
> capital than you but value something more than you and either raise 
> the money to outbid you or find the resources myself. I suspect that 
> Afilias has more money than that Beijing company, they just didn't 
> value the '.info" domain in Chinese more than the Chinese company, 
> based on their calculations of what they could make from the resource.
>
> True, money is the measure of value here, and thus auctions are best 
> for resolving contention among commercial parties, but making money is 
> in fact what is going on with about 90% of the cases here. And in even 
> noncommercial cases, when nonprofits lease office space, hire labor, 
> buy professional services, etc, they are "bidding against" everyone 
> else in the economy. No one thinks there should be a special community 
> board to decide what the price of an office should be for the 
> "special" case of noncommercial use.
>
> Auctions look even better when you start comparing them to non-auction 
> based contention resolution. If not auctions, what? Answer: pure 
> politics. Lobbying, favor-mongering, corruption. All of which costs 
> money. People who don't like auctions typically have a quasi-religious 
> belief that for any given name, there is One True Owner who has a 
> God-given right to it, and a non-economic process can magically and 
> without error locate that One True and Just Owner. I say that's B.S.. 
> The problem is that these religious claims, being, well, religious, 
> cannot be resolved in any rational way.
>
> *From:*ncuc-discuss-bounces at lists.ncuc.org 
> [mailto:ncuc-discuss-bounces at lists.ncuc.org] *On Behalf Of *Eranga 
> Samararathna
> *Sent:* Thursday, June 5, 2014 3:51 AM
> *To:* Avri Doria
> *Cc:* NCUC-discuss
> *Subject:* Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] Fwd: Results of the First New gTLD 
> Auction | ICANN New gTLDs
>
> Hi,
>
> Money should not be the last resort for resolution.
>
> Eranga.
>
> On Thu, Jun 5, 2014 at 1:09 PM, Avri Doria <avri at acm.org 
> <mailto:avri at acm.org>> wrote:
>
>
>
>     On 05-Jun-14 09:25, William Drake wrote:
>     > Economists love auctions and they do raise cash, but one wonders how
>     > suitable this procedure will be if we ever have contestation
>     involving
>     > less well resourced applicants from developing countries, civil
>     society,
>     > etc...
>     >
>
>     deep pockets win.
>     communities lose
>
>     but no one in power at ICANN cares about communities
>
>     and if there had been applicants from developing countries or , they
>     would also lose
>
>     and no one in power at ICANN cares about developing economies.
>
>     avri
>
>
>
>     > Bill
>     >
>     >>
>     http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/announcements-and-media/announcement-3-04jun14-en
>     >>
>     >>
>     >>   Results of the First New gTLD Auction
>     >>
>     >> On 4 June 2014 ICANN through its authorized auction services
>     provider,
>
>     >> Power Auctions LLC <http://www.powerauctions.com/>, completed the
>
>     >> first auction to resolve a contention set for a new generic
>     Top-level
>     >> Domain (gTLD) string. Contention sets are groups of
>     applications for
>     >> identical or confusingly similar strings.
>     >> Two applicants, Afilias Limited and Beijing Tele-info Network
>     >> Technology Co., LTD. applied for the gTLD ??, (xn--vuq861b), which
>     >> is a Chinese Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) for
>     "information" or
>     >> "info." These two applicants were unable to resolve the
>     contention set
>     >> between themselves, and thus proceeded to an auction, which is the
>     >> method of last resort to resolve string contentions as
>     prescribed in
>     >> Module 4 of the Applicant Guidebook. Beijing Tele-info Network
>     >> Technology Co., LTD. prevailed in the auction for the winning
>     price of
>     >> $600,000. Additional bidding information is available in the
>     auction
>     >> report
>
>     >>
>     <http://www.icann.org/sites/default/files/tlds/xn--vuq861b/xn--vuq861b-auction-results-04jun14-en.pdf>
>
>     >> [PDF, 225 KB]. Subject to payment of the Winning Price and
>     meeting all
>     >> other criteria for eligibility, the winner will begin the
>     contracting
>     >> process to sign a Registry Agreement to operate the ??,
>     >> (xn--vuq861b) gTLD.
>     >> This was the first auction for the New gTLD program. Subsequent
>     >> auctions are scheduled
>
>     >>
>     <http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/auctions/schedule-29may14-en.pdf>
>
>     >> [PDF, 306 KB] to occur on a monthly basis throughout 2014 and into
>     >> early 2015. The auction events are designed to accommodate
>     resolving
>     >> multiple contention sets simultaneously.
>     >> For more information on Auctions visit
>     >> http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/auctions.
>     >> To view the current contention set status visit:
>     >>
>     https://gtldresult.icann.org/application-result/applicationstatus/stringcontentionstatus
>     >>
>     >>
>     >>
>     >>
>     >> David A. Olive
>     >> Vice President, Policy Development Support
>     >> General Manager, ICANN Regional Headquarters --Istanbul
>     >> Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
>     >>
>     >> Direct Line: +90.212.381.8727 <tel:%2B90.212.381.8727>
>     >> Mobile: + 1. 202.341.3611 <tel:%2B%201.%20202.341.3611>
>
>     >> Email: david.olive at icann.org <mailto:david.olive at icann.org>
>     <mailto:david.olive at icann.org <mailto:david.olive at icann.org>>
>     >> www.icann.org <http://www.icann.org> <http://www.icann.org>
>     >> *
>
>     >> *
>     >>
>     >
>     > ***********************************************
>     > William J. Drake
>     > International Fellow & Lecturer
>     >   Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ
>     >   University of Zurich, Switzerland
>     > Chair, Noncommercial Users Constituency,
>
>     >   ICANN, www.ncuc.org <http://www.ncuc.org> <http://www.ncuc.org>
>     > william.drake at uzh.ch <mailto:william.drake at uzh.ch>
>     > <mailto:william.drake at uzh.ch <mailto:william.drake at uzh.ch>>
>     (direct), wjdrake at gmail.com <mailto:wjdrake at gmail.com>
>     > <mailto:wjdrake at gmail.com <mailto:wjdrake at gmail.com>> (lists),
>     > www.williamdrake.org <http://www.williamdrake.org>
>     <http://www.williamdrake.org>
>     > ***********************************************
>     >
>     >
>     >
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