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

Kan Kaili kankaili at gmail.com
Mon May 15 05:21:36 UTC 2017


Hi, 

Thank you for your comments.

As you mentioned, even at USD $175K per application, there were 1400 of them, which is indeed a lot.  From a commercial point of view, this may be interpreted as the fee is too low.  

However, ICANN is not a commercial entity.  Furthermore, ICANN is the ultimate authority of the DNS industry, pretty much like the government, which can also be understood as a natural manopoly.  Thus, the law of supply and demand should not be used in its policy decisions.

This reminds me of the 3G radio spectrum allocation process during the 2000s.  At first, some governments auctioned the 3G spectrum, which brought in billions of Euros for the government's treasury.  However, immediately there were loud complaints that this in turn translated into substantial higher fees for the ordinary consumers/ end-users.  Thus, other governments later took the "beauty contest" approach.  That is, a panel decides the suuccessful contender based on the service to be provided to the public.  Of course, there were also hybrid approaches, e.g., using an auction appoach to short-list the applicants, while the final decision being made via "beauty contests".

This example shows that, ICANN, being an NPO working for the public interest, should not consider its own financial interests as the basis on policy decisions.  Also, the law of supply and demand should not be applied either, especially as ICANN is a natural monopoly.

Thank you again.

Kaili




----- Original Message ----- 
From: <bzs at theworld.com>
To: "Evan Leibovitch" <evan at telly.org>
Cc: "Kan Kaili" <kankaili at gmail.com>; "ICANN At-Large list" <at-large at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
Sent: Monday, May 15, 2017 5:08 AM
Subject: Re: [At-Large] Auction Proceeds - where we are and what you can help


> 
> Personally I believe the $175K charge per gTLD app was far too low, it
> should have been at least 10x that.
> 
> That's why we got 1400 apps, quite a few of questionable value to
> anyone based on current results.
> 
> Next we'll get to deal with potentially hundreds of insolvent
> registries.
> 
> And the costs of those insolvencies which could be quite significant
> depending on the adopted solutions.
> 
> It's difficult to talk about "cost recovery" when those costs remain
> unknown.
> 
> -- 
>        -Barry Shein
> 
> Software Tool & Die    | bzs at TheWorld.com             | http://www.TheWorld.com
> Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: +1 617-STD-WRLD       | 800-THE-WRLD
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