Verisign on Process

Wed Oct 8 23:17:41 UTC 2003

> 
> 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 