[At-Large] ICANN Announcement on Domain Tasting

[Dominik Filipp]

Evan,

We can hardly say that .com business has something to do with free
market. It's sure for fact that .com has naturally evolved to become
most valuable domain commodity incomparable to any other TLD whatsoever.
In the middle of the process, however, ICANN honorable establishment
decided to accept eternal renewals thus de facto supporting monopoly
over the widest part of domain market. This is quite far from the belief
that ICANN should ensure healthy competition. Realizing this one should
not be dubious about artificial price controls as a logical consequence
of such a monopoly-dominant decision.

Domain tasting is in somewhat similar situation. We are all here proud
of achieving something that has significantly decreased the abuse
(thanks God), at least for the time being, but it is to say that it was
again ICANN who established the counter-productive concept of AGP
despite publicly expressed reservations from the very beginning when the
tasting appeared to become that abusive.

Both situations have something in common, ICANN's tendency to solve
problems it generates. Domain tasting is thus ICANN's victory over
ICANN.

Dominik


-----Original Message-----
From: at-large-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org
[mailto:at-large-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Evan
Leibovitch
Sent: Friday, August 14, 2009 6:18 PM
To: At-Large Worldwide
Cc: 'ALAC Working List'
Subject: Re: [At-Large] ICANN Announcement on Domain Tasting

Karl Auerbach wrote:
> On 08/14/2009 12:33 AM, Roberto Gaetano wrote:
>> Personally, I would not focus on the price as the main criterion for
>> evaluating the success of the elimination of domain tasting.
>
> The point that I was trying to make was something altogether apart
> from the tasting issue.
>
> Rather, I was suggesting that the tasting issue provided yet another
> chunk of evidence that the registry fees are completely out-of-line
> with the actual cost of providing the registry services.
And the cost of Coca Cola is totally out of line with the price of sugar
and water. But that's not the point.

ICANN, its wisdom, has made the philosophical call that domain names are
to be treated as commodities rather than identities, and as such are
subject the the whims of the market. The price of a domain is related
simply to what others are willing to pay for it, not the cost to
deliver. Verisign's shareholders should expect no less.

Having chosen the commodity path, it's up to ICANN to ensure healthy
competition and protection from abuse. Beyond that, I am dubious about
artificial price controls.

If people think they're getting gouged, let's give them some
alternatives. I think that this is why most folks in At-Large support
new gTLDs and a diversity of registry operators -- the more the merrier,
so long as there are some assertions of registrant rights (and
production of such a document is now underway, though slowly). There's
nothing *requiring* a registry to be domainer-friendly.

Despite the obvious good intentions, I am extremely wary of injecting
dubious price-policing into a free market. If it's not a free market,
then let's address *that*.

- Evan


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