[Gnso-newgtld-wg] Reaction to Proposal 5 on auctions

[Rubens Kuhl]

> On 18 Jul 2020, at 18:43, Alexander Schubert <alexander at schubert.berlin> wrote:
> 
> Hi Jim,
> 
> Thanks so much that you have put so much time and energy in this. You must have spent quite some time. THANKS! And the result is impressive – especially that private auctions would be executed by ICANN as well (we had some suggestion like that before) in order to prevent auction proceed rollovers at portfolio applicants. GOOD!
> 
> A question in regard to:
> In the event ICANN reasonably determines during any resolution of a contention set, might raise significant competition issues, ICANN shall refer the issue to the appropriate governmental competition authority or authorities with jurisdiction over the matter within five business days of making its determination, with notice to the potential Registry Operator.  (highlighted RED be me in your text)
> 
> Many portfolio applicants chose offshore jurisdictions. So what if the applicants are in offshore havens? I don’t think anybody in the BVI has any interest in investigating anything in such regard.

ICANN is based in the US, so they could always refer to FTC or DoJ anti-trust division and if a competition authority from one of the other applicants jurisdiction wants to chime in, why not ?

> 
> In regard to prevent auction profits being used to finance other auctions you wrote:
> All private auctions would be conducted using sealed bids and all bids, regardless of whether they be used for ICANN Auction of last resort or for ICANN administered “private auctions” would be due on the same day.  Any bids not used would be destroyed and not revealed.  (highlighted RED be me in your text)
> 
> Very good idea! We would have to “batch” auctions (private and ICANN). So initially we wait a bit until all clear cut cases are ready to be resolved (no objections, etc). I assume the majority of private and ICANN auctions would be ripe for execution quite quickly. The “auction” is in reality just a reveal anymore – the only “action” is that those who wish to participate would be asked to provide the deposit: So ICANN announces which contention sets go to (private or last resort) auction; the contention set members pay their deposit within X days, afterwards all results are being made public for both private and auction of last resort. Only the strings who are still in objection (or other mechanisms) won’t participate. We then wait again a while until a sufficient amount of contention sets are ready to be resolved and do the next batch (which again is just a reveal). Then at some time we do the last ones whenever they become ripe for auction.

There is no clear cut contention set until after the formal objections deadline. The clock can only start after it's clear of objections, like happened in 2012.


> Private auction and auction of last resort are essentially the same – only in the one case the proceeds go to the contention set and in the other they go to ICANN. Which is important: all the applicant entities that I manage for the respective communities will only chose the ICANN auction of last resort. Anything else would just invite free-riders. My communities need their strings as these are their identities – and announcing early to only participate in the ICANN auction deters extortionists.

Even in 2012 applicants could decide not to join the private auction, so they were not subject to extortion. It was their decision (good or bad) to participate in private auctions.
Now that it's clearer that private auction may fuel a competitor in another contention set, some might prefer to defer to last resort auction. Google did that in 2012 with .app, Verisign did that with .web.



Rubens


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-newgtld-wg/attachments/20200718/2efeb1ef/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 529 bytes
Desc: Message signed with OpenPGP
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-newgtld-wg/attachments/20200718/2efeb1ef/signature.asc>