IP: ICANNS DOMAIN NAME COMPETITION CLAIMS DISPUTED

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 15:17:24 -0400
>From: Milton Mueller <mueller@syr.edu>
>
>NEWS RELEASE
>
>BWG DISPUTES ICANN?S DOMAIN NAME COMPETITION CLAIMS
>
>(Boston, April 23, 1999) The Boston Working Group (BWG) today
>challenged ICANN's claim that it had opened up the domain name
>registration market to competition. The group also criticized the
>contract ICANN has imposed upon its registrars, noting that it
>requires domain name registrants to sacrifice essential rights when
>applying for a domain name. ?We see a lot of centralization of power
>and lots of regulation in the ICANN plan, but very little new
>competition,? said Dr. Milton Mueller, a Syracuse University professor
>and member of the group.
>
>COMPETITION, OR REGULATED MONOPOLY?
>The ICANN proposal, released Wednesday, accredits five new companies
>to register domain names in the ".com" ".net" and ".org" top-level
>domains.
>
>Despite ICANN's claims that this will bring competition to the domain
>name market, Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI) retains its monopoly over
>the crucial database of registered names. The plan does not authorize
>new database administrators or new TLDs, and contains no measures to
>transfer ownership of the ?.com,? ?.net? and ?.org? databases. The
>five new companies must pay NSI a one-time fee of $10,000, plus $9 per
>year for every name they register.
>
>Thus, the so-called "new competition" is nothing but an agreement to
>resell entries in NSI's registration database at a price regulated by
>the US government. Prior to the ICANN plan, hundreds of registrars
>were already reselling NSI names, at a higher price.
>
>BWG member David Schutt, network manager at Speco, Inc., questioned
>the significance of the ICANN initiative: "is competition between
>McDonalds franchises meaningful in a world where the only hamburger
>available is a McDonalds hamburger?"
>
>Dr. Mueller, an expert in telecommunications regulation, noted that
>the US Commerce Department 's National Telecommunications and
>Information Administration was responsible for setting NSI's
>compensation at $9/yr. per name. The NTIA, Mueller claimed, ?seems to
>be imposing a cost-plus, utility regulation model upon the core
>functions of the Internet. I don?t understand why NTIA is opting for
>price regulation when it could simply open the market to new players
>and allow customers to have real alternatives. Besides, NTIA lacks the
>experience, the competence, and the legal authority to engage in
>economic regulation of Internet name services.?
>
>Most members of the BWG group believe that real competition in domain
>name service will come only with the addition of new top-level domains
>administered by registries other than NSI. Alternative TLDs have
>already been proposed for several years, but the US government has not
>allowed them to be entered into the root server databases. ICANN's
>plan to offer shared access to a monopoly registry fails to create the
>kind of product and service differentiation that competition among new
>registration authorities will bring.
>
>ERODING THE RIGHTS OF DOMAIN NAME HOLDERS
>The primary effect of the new plan is not to increase competition in
>domain name registration, but to give ICANN the power to regulate
>domain name registrars and domain name holders by creating a uniform
>and centralized registrar accreditation
>contract.
>
>Press reports about the ICANN plan completely overlooked the
>significance of the registrar accreditation contract, which can be
>viewed at http://www.icann.org/policy_statement.html. All service
>providers accredited by ICANN must force their customers to sign away
>important legal rights?including rights the courts have already
>granted to domain name holders.
>
>Registrars or registries can cancel or take back the domain name
>registration whenever they please, and all goodwill or business
>presence created in that name would be lost.
>
>The contract allows ICANN to develop a list of excluded names sometime
>in the future, and authorizes ICANN to refuse to re-register any name
>that shows up on that list?once again threatening a domain name
>holder?s goodwill and business presence.
>
>Those who wish to register domain names must also make a legally
>binding promise that the domain name doesn't interfere with anyone
>else's possible rights in the name -- something that even domain name
>lawyers often can't ascertain.
>
>"It's difficult to understand what ICANN is trying to achieve with
>this requirement," said Mikki Barry, BWG member and intellectual
>property lawyer. "Even in the best of worlds, it often takes a court
>to decide whether others have rights in any given claimed
>intellectual property."
>
>The BOSTON WORKING GROUP is an independent alliance of Internet
>technology professionals, lawyers, policy analysts, and academics.
>The BWG submitted a bylaws proposal for a new non-profit corporation
>to administer Internet domain names and addresses, and its submission
>played a key role in opening up ICANN to membership and public input.
>Several BWG members now serve on the ICANN Membership Advisory
>Committee and the Independent Review Advisory Committee.
>
>Contacts:
>Dr. Milton Mueller (East coast)
>Syracuse University School of Information Studies
>315-443-5616 mueller@syr.edu
>
>Ellen Rony (West coast)
>Phone:  415/435-5010 (days) or 415/435-1401 (evenings)
>Email: erony@marin.k12.ca.us
>
>David Schutt (Central)
>(847) 678-4240 days
>(708) 484-5063 evenings
>
>
>* APPLe: To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe" to apple-request@apnic.net *