- Joined
- May 17, 2002
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The revised ICANN-VeriSign proposed settlement has been posted:
http://www.icann.org/topics/verisign-settlement.htm
It's still unacceptable. They made a few changes (e.g. can increase prices by 7% 4 out of every 6 years), but they were very minor.
I just submitted my initial comments, although it takes a while for them to appear at http://forum.icann.org/lists/revised-settlement/ :
Subject: Lipstick on a pig doesn't make me want to kiss it
Hello,
No matter how much lipstick you put on a pig, it's still a pig. My lips won't kiss that pig.
The revisions that were made to the proposed ICANN-VeriSign settlement were extremely minor, and the staff has, intentionally or unintentionally, misread and mischaracterized the public comments on the prior settlement proposal.
One of the most misleading lines was in the analysis of public comments, where someone (no staffer signed their name to the document, to take responsibility for it) summarized the feelings toward price increases as "Regarding registrants, there was some expression that there might be some negative effects due to the potential price increases, but, the majority across constituencies expressed that the increase in cost was negligible when compared to the value of a domain name registration." Most registrants, who are ultimately paying the bills for ICANN, registries, registrars, etc, were solidly against the price aspect of the proposed settlement. As I mentioned in my prior comments at:
http://forum.icann.org/lists/settlement-comments/msg00000.html
competitive bidding for the .com registry would have brought the wholesale cost of .com domains to the $2/domain per year level, approximately, a 66%+ reduction in costs. Yet ICANN considers it a negotiating victory for consumers when there's no cost reduction at all, but instead an average price INCREASE per year of 4.7% (i.e. 2/3rds of 7%). In technology-based industries, price REDUCTIONS, due to economies of scale, are far more typical, yet ICANN somehow feels price increases are desirable. It makes no sense.
The only possible reason one could conclude that price INCREASES are the norm would be if the majority of VeriSign's costs are not technological. If the majority of VeriSign's costs consist of wining and dining ICANN staff at exotic locations around the world, I might begin to see your point....
The sale of traffic data provisions is unacceptable. Notice that the language specifically permits access to data on "non existent domain names" for "promoting the sale of domain names". In other words, if example.com is getting a lot of type-in traffic, and is unregistered, VeriSign could sell that data, thereby promoting low-cost cybersquatting (since a large percentage of those types of names are TM infringements, as various independent analysts of SiteFinder concluded. Instead of monetizing that traffic itself, VeriSign will monetize it indirectly. Furthermore, VeriSign will be able to see the traffic to individual domain names (e.g. to know whether eBay.com is getting more activity than Amazon.com, or more importantly, whether yourdomain.com is getting more DNS activity than yourcompetitor.com).
With regards to Appendix W requirements related to R&D expenditures (including universal WHOIS), there continues to be a total lack of transparency, due to ICANN's continuing refusal to disclose the annual reports of VeriSign. I did a search of the 2001 main agreement at:
http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/registry-agmt-com-25may01.htm
and the word "confidential" appears a total of ZERO times. The number of times the word "private" is also ZERO. Yet, somehow, we are led to believe that ICANN can't release these annual reports? Why? Yet, we've not seen a Universal WHOIS. There are ORDINARY expenditures to increase the .com registry capability (i.e. in keeping with normal registry growth, with unchanged technology) that should not be treated as Appendix W spending, yet we'll never know if these are being mischaracterized. Instead, we have to rely on what we can see, namely there exists NO UNIVERSAL WHOIS. Reliance on 3rd parties? That's false --- every .com/net/org registrar HAS to sell the data to VeriSign or anyone who requests it, for no more than $10,000/yr. VeriSign controls the .tv registry, and a few others, so shouldn't have a hard time negotiating with itself.
In conclusion, after a first reading (I'll make more comments later, should I discover more upon in-depth reading), the proposed settlement agreement continues to be unacceptable. ICANN and VeriSign are shifting the burden of costs related to the settlement on third parties, namely registrants (and to some extent registrars). ICANN and VeriSign should go back to the negotiating table, and cut/out any part of the settlement that relates to renewal of the .com registry. That "linkage" was not necessary. The settlement should instead focus on only those issues related to the initial SiteFinder lawsuit, in particular the definition of registry services, and whether VeriSign was in breach of their 2001 registry agreement.
Sincerely,
George Kirikos
http://www.kirikos.com/
http://www.icann.org/topics/verisign-settlement.htm
It's still unacceptable. They made a few changes (e.g. can increase prices by 7% 4 out of every 6 years), but they were very minor.
I just submitted my initial comments, although it takes a while for them to appear at http://forum.icann.org/lists/revised-settlement/ :
Subject: Lipstick on a pig doesn't make me want to kiss it
Hello,
No matter how much lipstick you put on a pig, it's still a pig. My lips won't kiss that pig.
The revisions that were made to the proposed ICANN-VeriSign settlement were extremely minor, and the staff has, intentionally or unintentionally, misread and mischaracterized the public comments on the prior settlement proposal.
One of the most misleading lines was in the analysis of public comments, where someone (no staffer signed their name to the document, to take responsibility for it) summarized the feelings toward price increases as "Regarding registrants, there was some expression that there might be some negative effects due to the potential price increases, but, the majority across constituencies expressed that the increase in cost was negligible when compared to the value of a domain name registration." Most registrants, who are ultimately paying the bills for ICANN, registries, registrars, etc, were solidly against the price aspect of the proposed settlement. As I mentioned in my prior comments at:
http://forum.icann.org/lists/settlement-comments/msg00000.html
competitive bidding for the .com registry would have brought the wholesale cost of .com domains to the $2/domain per year level, approximately, a 66%+ reduction in costs. Yet ICANN considers it a negotiating victory for consumers when there's no cost reduction at all, but instead an average price INCREASE per year of 4.7% (i.e. 2/3rds of 7%). In technology-based industries, price REDUCTIONS, due to economies of scale, are far more typical, yet ICANN somehow feels price increases are desirable. It makes no sense.
The only possible reason one could conclude that price INCREASES are the norm would be if the majority of VeriSign's costs are not technological. If the majority of VeriSign's costs consist of wining and dining ICANN staff at exotic locations around the world, I might begin to see your point....
The sale of traffic data provisions is unacceptable. Notice that the language specifically permits access to data on "non existent domain names" for "promoting the sale of domain names". In other words, if example.com is getting a lot of type-in traffic, and is unregistered, VeriSign could sell that data, thereby promoting low-cost cybersquatting (since a large percentage of those types of names are TM infringements, as various independent analysts of SiteFinder concluded. Instead of monetizing that traffic itself, VeriSign will monetize it indirectly. Furthermore, VeriSign will be able to see the traffic to individual domain names (e.g. to know whether eBay.com is getting more activity than Amazon.com, or more importantly, whether yourdomain.com is getting more DNS activity than yourcompetitor.com).
With regards to Appendix W requirements related to R&D expenditures (including universal WHOIS), there continues to be a total lack of transparency, due to ICANN's continuing refusal to disclose the annual reports of VeriSign. I did a search of the 2001 main agreement at:
http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/registry-agmt-com-25may01.htm
and the word "confidential" appears a total of ZERO times. The number of times the word "private" is also ZERO. Yet, somehow, we are led to believe that ICANN can't release these annual reports? Why? Yet, we've not seen a Universal WHOIS. There are ORDINARY expenditures to increase the .com registry capability (i.e. in keeping with normal registry growth, with unchanged technology) that should not be treated as Appendix W spending, yet we'll never know if these are being mischaracterized. Instead, we have to rely on what we can see, namely there exists NO UNIVERSAL WHOIS. Reliance on 3rd parties? That's false --- every .com/net/org registrar HAS to sell the data to VeriSign or anyone who requests it, for no more than $10,000/yr. VeriSign controls the .tv registry, and a few others, so shouldn't have a hard time negotiating with itself.
In conclusion, after a first reading (I'll make more comments later, should I discover more upon in-depth reading), the proposed settlement agreement continues to be unacceptable. ICANN and VeriSign are shifting the burden of costs related to the settlement on third parties, namely registrants (and to some extent registrars). ICANN and VeriSign should go back to the negotiating table, and cut/out any part of the settlement that relates to renewal of the .com registry. That "linkage" was not necessary. The settlement should instead focus on only those issues related to the initial SiteFinder lawsuit, in particular the definition of registry services, and whether VeriSign was in breach of their 2001 registry agreement.
Sincerely,
George Kirikos
http://www.kirikos.com/
