[At-Large] Auction Proceeds - where we are and what you can help

John R. Levine johnl at iecc.com
Sun May 14 22:24:26 UTC 2017


> First of all, I am glad that ICANN has kept seperate accounting for the 
> new gTLD program, which is clearly a prudent way to handle it. 
> However, if we look at all the income brought in by the program, it will 
> also include the auction revenue, same as the USD $175K a piece for 
> applicants.  The only difference is, when there is high demand for a 
> certain TLD, the price went higher due to the law of supply and demand. 
> Thus, not considering this auction revenue was either a mistake at the 
> first place, or not seeing the very nature of it, or both.

The auction money really was a surprise.  ICANN practically begged 
applicants to run private auctions or otherwise resolve conflicts outside 
of ICANN, which many but not all applicants did.  It was in applicants' 
self interest to do so, since in the private auctions, the losers split 
the money, while in the ICANN auctions, the losers got nothing.

I was astonished at the number and size of ICANN "last chance" auctions, 
and I was certainly not the only one.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl at iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly


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