At 2:51 PM -0400 10/8/03, Dean Anderson wrote:
On Wed, 8 Oct 2003, Howard C. Berkowitz wrote:
VeriSign's vice president for its registry service. Citing concerns of proprietary information and competitive advantage, he added that he didn't think he could guarantee any advance notice of similar changes in the future.
Gomes' position truly bothers me if a registry, given that it meets the formal definition of a technical monopoly, is planning around competitive advantage.
This is incorrect. Verisign is not a monopoly. There are many registrars of .net and .com domain names which compete with Verisign.
--Dean
It is not a monopoly in its regiSTRAR function. It is a monopoly as regiSTRY of .net and .com. It couldn't have inserted the wildcards if it wasn't. Having control of the TLD servers makes you a monopoly for that TLD.
At 2:51 PM -0400 10/8/03, Dean Anderson wrote:
On Wed, 8 Oct 2003, Howard C. Berkowitz wrote:
VeriSign's vice president for its registry service. Citing concerns of proprietary information and competitive advantage, he added that he didn't think he could guarantee any advance notice of similar changes in the future.
Gomes' position truly bothers me if a registry, given that it meets the formal definition of a technical monopoly, is planning around competitive advantage.
This is incorrect. Verisign is not a monopoly. There are many registrars of .net and .com domain names which compete with Verisign.
--Dean
It is not a monopoly in its regiSTRAR function.
It is a monopoly as regiSTRY of .net and .com. It couldn't have inserted the wildcards if it wasn't. Having control of the TLD servers makes you a monopoly for that TLD.
Is it possibly time to suggest that perhaps ICANN should call for formal separation of regiSTRAR functions from regiSTRY functions, and stipulate that stewards of record for regiSTRY functions not participate in regiSTRAR roles? Certainly it's been shown to be very difficult to resist the temptation to extend editorial control over what entries get placed into the DNS records as a regiSTRY if you also happen to be able to increase the profits from your regiSTRAR role. If the functions are stipulated to be kept separate, then we have a much better opportunity to engage a system of checks and balances, to self-limit potential future abuses like this. A thought, nothing more... Matt
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Howard C. Berkowitz -
matt＠petach.org