[council] Dot net

[Philip Sheppard]

Council,
for possible discussion under AOB at the Council meeting May 12. Please note
I have just posted this comment to the dot.net public comments web site.
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Background 
I previously posted to ICANN .net public comments, concern about the
dissonance in the Telcordia methodology and the GNSO .net report and its
recommendation. The GNSO report stated that the number one relative criteria
was "Relative Criteria related to promotion of competition." The conclusion
of my previous posting was that the methodology of the evaluator's report
directly contradicts the essence of the GNSO report. 
At the Mar del Plata ICANN meeting, there were several questions made by
members of the ICANN community, regarding the Telecordia report. Telcordia
was asked to respond to the questions raised by the other bidders, and has
done so. I fear that the response still misses the essential point. The
criteria Telcordia used provided no measure of value of one applicant over
another dependent on their current market position in the REGISTRY market -
the very market in which the GNSO council was seeking to competitively
enhance. Instead, all the measures looked at how the REGISTRAR market might
be competitively enhanced. While it was left to Telcordia to design the
evaluation criteria, these criteria were signed off by ICANN. The ICANN
Board has the responsibility to ensure, as part of their responsibility to
maintain the stability and security of the Internet's identifier systems,
that an underlying competitive environment is enhanced. It is now up to the
ICANN Board to mitigate the negative impact of an award with respect to
competitiveness at the Registry level.
Proposal 
Should the ICANN Board decide to award .net to the incumbent, they do so in
the knowledge that this sanctions a circa 84% market share in the Registry
market. Such an award should only be made based on a set of conditions to
mitigate any potential undesirable effects of undue market dominance.
Conditions that should be considered include the following:
1. Divestment of all minority interests in all other Registries within say 1
year.
2. Divestment of all interests in all Registrars within say 1 year.
3. A re-bid for .net every 6 years. 

Philip Sheppard

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