[registrars] My comments - Verisign batch pool issue

[Jordyn A. Buchanan]

Bhavin:

There are several points in your e-mail that I take issue with.  My 
thoughts are in-line below:

> * the real problem is not verisign getting pounded. I don't think that 
> ever
> was the issue. The number of connections were reduced from 40 per 
> registrar
> to 10 per registrar in the last 8 months. There is statistical data 
> from
> reliable that shows that there were more commands being sent to the 
> batch
> pool in Jan 2004 than there are as of today. Verisign can clearly 
> reduce the
> number of connections from 10 to 5 or even 1 and reduce their load by 
> 1/40th
> of the orignal load. The orignal system supported 100+ registrars at 40
> connections. At 1 connection per registrar they should be able to 
> support
> 4000 (I don't think we will reach that number ever considering the new
> NSI/TUCOWS model as such discourages any phantom creds now)

There are several problems with this analysis.

You may not have been around at the time, but the reason that the 
automated batch pool exists is that the add storms in early 2001 
crippled the registry for hours at a time and made it impossible to 
perform new registrations or make changes to existing ones.  Given the 
opportunity, clearly have the ability to overwhelm the registry.

Second, as Bruce Tonkin has pointed out in a separate issue it is 
unacceptable for new entrants into the registrar space to simply dilute 
the resources available to existing businesses.  Some registrars 
(Register.com included) need more than 1 connection to the automated 
batch pool simply to maintain our existing domain names.  Long before 
the registry's theoretical capacity of 4000 connections spread over 
4000 registrars is reached, a number of existing registrars will be 
unable to effectively serve their customers.

> * Solution 1 also gives more chances to larger registrars, thus being
> unequal

Several people have raised this issue, but I believe it has not been 
substantiated by anyone.  What is the analysis here?  Solution 1 
rewards registrars that are efficient, regardless of size.  Large 
registrars who simply pound away will exceed the ratio because they 
won't be adding names efficiently that way; small registrars who figure 
out a clever way to grab names with a smaller number of transactions 
will be able to continue to grab expiring names without

> Solution 1: DO NOTHING
> ----------------------
>
> * This is the simplest solution and it works. The market has 
> considerably
> changed since this debate came up.
>
> * Firstly most registrars may shortly not allow names to expire 
> judging NSI
> and TUCOWS' latest move. Infact I am quite certain of this eventuality 
> - for
> various reasons which I will separately discuss. This has already 
> prevented
> addtl phantom applications from applying. I will send out some hard 
> data on
> this shortly

The problem with this approach is that it seems to assume that the move 
that NSI and Tucows has taken is a good thing for the industry.  I'm 
not sure I have enough information to really judge that yet.  At the 
very least, their approach seems to present a number of problems, the 
most significant of which is that they are creating registration 
"islands" in which expiring names cease to be available to the general 
community of registrars.  In the short term, that seems to be great for 
a company like Register.com, with a base of high quality names.  From a 
slightly longer term perspective, though, I don't think we are stronger 
as an industry if registrants have to hunt around to figure out which 
registrar they need to go to in order to register a particular name.  
Indeed, average Internet users are unlikely to bother, meaning that 
expiring domains will continue to simply be re-allocated to businesses 
based around traffic generation.  And while I recognize that traffic 
generation is a legitimate business, and many of us derive significant 
portions of our revenue from those who specialize in it, I think as an 
industry we should be looking for ways to make domain names valuable 
destinations in their own right.

In his articles about Tucows' approach, Ross admirably makes the case 
for including the existing registrant in the process in order to yield 
decisions based on "perfect information".  Unfortunately, in the 
process sales channels are balkanized so new registrants visiting a 
particular registrar's site won't know that names being deleted by 
another registrar might be available at auction.  The end result is 
that by moving closer to "perfect information" for incumbent 
registrants, we are moving farther away from that same idealized 
"perfect information" for potential new registrants.  Given that the 
incumbent registrant doesn't care enough about the name to bother to 
renew it, I'm not sure this is a worthy trade off.  Fortunately, even 
Ross seems to acknowledge that Tucows' local solution is only a 
transitional phase prior to some sort of global fix.  We need to 
identify that fix before the market becomes fragmented.

Bruce Tonkin has already made the case that an auction seems like a 
reasonable way to resolve contention for names at the registry level.  
I agree.  Such an approach allows the market for expiring names to 
operate without placing an undue burden on the registry and also has 
the potential to be profitable for a variety of registrars, including 
large registrars with an existing pool of names under management as 
well as smaller registrars who can now present a more attractive 
inventory of names to their customers.

Jordyn