Daniel Karrenberg <Daniel.Karrenberg@ripe.net> wrote
"Alex.Bligh" <amb@xara.net> writes:
Historically the way to prevent such market disfunction has been regulation of this sort. Which is exactly what Internic, RIPE, etc. do. However, where regulation is different in different geographical areas in what is effectively a global market place, it causes problems. c.f. the telecoms industry.
That is true and we work very hard to align all regional registries to the extent possible. I see no major differences causingproblems at the moment. If there are, please point them out.
randy Conrad has made the argument why there is a need for the regional differences that do exist.
I don't disagree with either of the above. I was not arguing against regional registries, just that the problem is more widely known and understood than in just the internet industry. There has been the potential for problems (viz. the subject line) but AFAIK they've mostly been sorted by harmonizing the differences. Where this hasn't happened yet (one area I have direct experience of is namespace - .co.uk vs. .com for example), it has started to distort the 'market'. Alex Bligh Xara Networks