>Toyota, you can buy Ford, but you can't buy a Toyota at a Ford >dealership. If you don't like .WEB, you can buy .BIZ, but you can't >buy a .WEB domain at a .BIZ registry. > And you create a fractured market with more monopolies. Wholesale outlets don't function like retail outlets. >If you're talking the norm in retail, you've destroyed your argument >right there. You are right, however, that this isn't brain surgery: >it's business. > My arguement's good. You need to figure out is who the manufacturer is. It's *NOT* and never will be the registry. _____S_i_m_o_n___H_i_g_g_s_________________H_i_g_g_s___A_m_e_r_i_c_a_____ ... "I'm fine - it's the others" ......... President/CEO ................ _____e-mail: simon@higgs.com _____________ http://www.higgs.com/ ________ ... http://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-higgs-tld-cat-02.txt ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Aug 1996 17:29:53 -0700 From: Michael Dillon Subject: Re: Who "owns" tld's On Fri, 16 Aug 1996, Christian Huitema wrote: > On one hand, I like the idea that "if you want to compete, you must run a > server and serve the whole domain." Enhance the spirit of cooperation and > all that. But then, these guys are my competitors. So I have a business > model where, the most successful I am, the more cost they bear. I am not > sure this is sustainable. At the very least, there must be some cost > sharing agreement... I like the model where the registry runs the central shared database and any nameservers for the TLD but agents do all the registration work and presumably pay a transaction fee to the registry. This way everybody's costs and profits are comensurate to the work they do. Michael Dillon - ISP & Internet Consulting Memra Software Inc. - Fax: +1-604-546-3049 http://www.memra.com - E-mail: michael@memra.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Aug 1996 18:44:53 -0700 From: Dan Busarow Subject: Re: Who "owns" tld's On Fri, 16 Aug 1996, Christian Huitema wrote: > the copies of the complete domain. In short, each time I add 1,000,000 > entries to my data base, everybody in the sharing agreement gets to add > 1,000,000 entries in theirs. I submit that if you are registering 1M domains a day your competitors have probably already gone out of business. You must be doing something right :) You can probably afford to run your own set of topologically diverse name servers too. > On one hand, I like the idea that "if you want to compete, you must run a > server and serve the whole domain." Enhance the spirit of cooperation and > all that. But then, these guys are my competitors. So I have a business > model where, the most successful I am, the more cost they bear. Since the distibution of new zone data *needs* to be automated for the distributed model to work, the primary cost is in memory and cpu. Both are pretty cheap. And I still think that the centralized model is the way to go. Dan - -- Dan Busarow 714 443 4172 DPC Systems dan@dpcsys.com Dana Point, California 83 09 EF 59 E0 11 89 B4 8D 09 DB FD E1 DD 0C 82 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Aug 1996 19:13:01 -0700 From: chris@kosh.punk.net (Christopher Ambler) Subject: Re: New Non-Shared TLD's Create More Monopolies >You're providing no choice in buying a Toyota. That's called a monopoly, >which is not how the real market works. I can go, right now, to any of a >couple of hundred dealers in L.A. which will sell me a new Toyota. I can >also buy other makes off the same lot, but I have the choice of dealers for >any one particular manufacturer. Simon, I don't think you understand my point. You can go to one of 166 LA-Area Toyota Dealers, but each one of them MUST BUY THEIR TOYOTA FROM TOYOTA MOTOR SALES USA, which owns the rights to those Toyotas! Under that paradigm, I will own .WEB, and will hapilly sell them to .WEB dealers worldwide. No problem. You cannot buy a Ford at a Toyota dealer! (for those who say sure you can, at "Anywhere City Ford, Toyota, and Lexus," please note that that is essentially three dealerships under one roof. Each make is treated seperately.) What you're mandating is that *any* dealership *anywhere* can sell Toyotas, which just isn't how it works. You must be a Toyota dealer. That's a valid argument, of course, I just don't agree with it, as there is no precident for this business model that I can see. >Now you're confusing shared stores with shared-tlds. Shared stores don't >exist. The TLD can be shared. It's administration can be given/delegated to >multiple store managers, who can sell SLDs on the shelf alongside all the >SLDs of the other TLDs. Sure, I just don't buy into it. If the TLD that I've chosen has a better marketing value than yours, you're mandating that I must share mine with you, and you must share yours with me. Who wins here? You do. If, on the other hand, the TLD wasn't chosen by anyone, just assigned, than the distribution becomes more fair, but we have an even worse problem: what if I, with more money than you, can afford to sell the shared SLDs for $10 each, and you can only break even at $20, you're going to get NO BUSINESS! There are those who claim that this isn't about business and money, but I'm afriad I can't agree with that either. Running a registry is a business, and if it's unprofitable nobody will do it. If it's mandated such that it's unfair, it's flawed from the start. The only solution I can see is that all registries agree on a price for the TLD they share. Unfortunately, this is price-fixing and is illegal in the US. Furthermore, the legal ramifications of non- compliance are staggering. Simon, shared TLDs make a lot of sense: *voluntarilly* ... but to mandate it is just a plainly bad idea. Christopher Ambler President, Image Online Design, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Aug 1996 19:13:10 -0700 From: Simon Higgs Subject: Re: New Non-Shared TLD's Create More Monopolies At 5:44 PM -0700 8/16/96, Christopher Ambler wrote: First, I have no personal problem with certain TLDs being assigned to one single registry in the appropriate situation. >>You're providing no choice in buying a Toyota. That's called a monopoly, >>which is not how the real market works. I can go, right now, to any of a >>couple of hundred dealers in L.A. which will sell me a new Toyota. I can >>also buy other makes off the same lot, but I have the choice of dealers for >>any one particular manufacturer. > >Simon, I don't think you understand my point. You can go to one of 166 >LA-Area Toyota Dealers, but each one of them MUST BUY THEIR TOYOTA FROM >TOYOTA MOTOR SALES USA, which owns the rights to those Toyotas! Under >that paradigm, I will own .WEB, and will hapilly sell them to .WEB >dealers worldwide. No problem. You cannot buy a Ford at a Toyota >dealer! (for those who say sure you can, at "Anywhere City Ford, Toyota, >and Lexus," please note that that is essentially three dealerships under >one roof. Each make is treated seperately.) > Secondly, you're assuming that the registry is the same entity as the manufacturer. This isn't true. You cannot manufacture the TLD in the root, therefore you are not the ultimate owner. You can only resell SLDs that are provided by the manufacturer to you (in bulk!), and as such you are just a store front. >What you're mandating is that *any* dealership *anywhere* can sell >Toyotas, which just isn't how it works. You must be a Toyota dealer. >That's a valid argument, of course, I just don't agree with it, as there >is no precident for this business model that I can see. > No, I'm not. I'm only saying that any Toyota dealership can sell Toyotas, and that there not be one exclusive Toyota store. Not all registries will want to sell all TLDs. >>Now you're confusing shared stores with shared-tlds. Shared stores don't >>exist. The TLD can be shared. It's administration can be given/delegated to >>multiple store managers, who can sell SLDs on the shelf alongside all the >>SLDs of the other TLDs. > >Sure, I just don't buy into it. If the TLD that I've chosen has a >better marketing value than yours, you're mandating that I must >share mine with you, and you must share yours with me. Who wins >here? You do. > That's because you're assuming you can manufacture the TLD. If you can't, all you can do is resell it. >If, on the other hand, the TLD wasn't chosen by anyone, just assigned, >than the distribution becomes more fair, but we have an even worse >problem: what if I, with more money than you, can afford to >sell the shared SLDs for $10 each, and you can only break even at >$20, you're going to get NO BUSINESS! > That's natural free market forces at work. Shit happens. >There are those who claim that this isn't about business and money, >but I'm afriad I can't agree with that either. Running a registry >is a business, and if it's unprofitable nobody will do it. If it's >mandated such that it's unfair, it's flawed from the start. > Agreed. >The only solution I can see is that all registries agree on a price >for the TLD they share. Unfortunately, this is price-fixing and is >illegal in the US. Furthermore, the legal ramifications of non- >compliance are staggering. > It will only shake out and find it's natural pricing level with competition. Too high, nobody buys, too low, you're out of business. Plus, if you add other services (reliable web/NS hosting) into the picture, people will come to you because of your reputation and then you're making financial sense. You can't do that without the competition. >Simon, shared TLDs make a lot of sense: *voluntarilly* ... but to >mandate it is just a plainly bad idea. > Then only the volunteers will be assigned the shared TLDs. Think about it. That's not to say other non-shared TLDs can't exist too. _____S_i_m_o_n___H_i_g_g_s_________________H_i_g_g_s___A_m_e_r_i_c_a_____ ... "I'm fine - it's the others" ......... President/CEO ................ _____e-mail: simon@higgs.com _____________ http://www.higgs.com/ ________ ... http://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-higgs-tld-cat-02.txt ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Aug 1996 20:29:13 -0700 From: kslim@merlion.singnet.com.sg (KOON SANG LIM) Subject: FW: New Non-Shared TLD's Break Monopolies Dear Bob I don't think so. Though I have no direct experience in dealing with Internic and NSI but from the list it seems that they do not offer great deal of services. It should not be too hard to beat them it seems, unless they improve their services as a result of the compttition which is good for us I believe. Best regards KS Lim - ---------------Original Message--------------- If the RFC explicitly recognizes various new Non-Shared TLD's shortly following it's release a flock of new TLD registries will be created to compete with national and Internic registries. That will effectively and permanently eliminate their monopoly. The irony of the whole debate is that there is absolutely no incentive for anyone to go out and form a new TLD registry for any shared TLD's. Why start anything where the competion is so far ahead in the game? A vote for Shared TLD's only is a vote for continued abuses. A vote for extremely limited new TLD's is the same. Only unrestricted Non-Shared exclusive Top Level Domains will encourage real people to put real machines and real money into the process. TeleVirtually Yours, Bob Allisat tor@wtv.net Director, World Televirtual Network http://www.wtv.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Aug 1996 20:56:33 -0700 From: Kent Crispin Subject: Re: New Non-Shared TLD's Create More Monopolies Simon Higgs allegedly said: > > At 5:44 PM -0700 8/16/96, Christopher Ambler wrote: [spirited debate deleted] You probably all know that I tend to favor Simon's view here. I would rather not debate the meaning of the word monopoly, but I would like to point out an underlying issue. TLD names are not like toyotas or fords. They are fixed, immutable, things, and some are clearly "better" than others -- .web, for example, is a much more memorable name than .c47. This has nothing to do with superior marketing skill, or sustained creativity, or anything else that would normally merit reward in a capitalist system -- Chris did absolutely nothing to create the value that exists in the word "web". Exclusive use of the name .web is essentially, therefore, a form of government patronage. Furthermore, it's not really like giving someone exclusive right to a mineral deposit so that they can develop it, it's more like giving someone an exclusive right to a site where the gold sits in nuggets on the ground -- the value is already there in the word "web". Certainly Chris can do further work to increase the value, but it is plain that the major value of .web requires no real development. It's just not the same as an exclusive license for .c47. (If it was, Chris would be perfectly happy with either.) So, I suppose, the analogy is that there is only one manufacturer of automobiles, and rest of them are motorcycles, go kcarts, and bicycles. > That's because you're assuming you can manufacture the TLD. If you can't, > all you can do is resell it. > > >If, on the other hand, the TLD wasn't chosen by anyone, just assigned, > >than the distribution becomes more fair, but we have an even worse > >problem: what if I, with more money than you, can afford to > >sell the shared SLDs for $10 each, and you can only break even at > >$20, you're going to get NO BUSINESS! > > That's natural free market forces at work. Shit happens. Besides, that ignores the obvious thing that many, perhaps most, registries would do it as a sideline. With all shared TLDs I would imagine that most registries would actually be ISPs, that would do domain registration as part of a package. Shared TLDs makes them much more like commodities. We don't go to stores that exclusively sell cereal, because that is not a viable business model for a retail outlet -- cereal simply isn't important enough to merit a store of its own. Cereal isn't a vanity item, competition is fierce, marketing is fierce both at the retail and the brand level, and the result of all this competition is that market forces drive the price of cereal down to an equilibrium level (in theory, at least -- I recall hearing about charges of price fixing in the cereal industry). > >There are those who claim that this isn't about business and money, > >but I'm afriad I can't agree with that either. Running a registry > >is a business, and if it's unprofitable nobody will do it. If it's > >mandated such that it's unfair, it's flawed from the start. A viable business model does not require that registries be stand-alone businesses. Some may be. [snip] - -- Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited", kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: B6 04 CC 30 9E DE CD FE 6A 04 90 BB 26 77 4A 5E ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Aug 1996 21:15:50 -0700 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: New Non-Shared TLD's Create More Monopolies It seems to me there's a very simple difference of opinion here. Chris is looking at a domain registry as a stand-alone business, and is saying that he doesn't think he can make money as a stand-alone registry without the extra income he'd get via a monopoly on part of the name space. I expect that's correct. Simon is pointing out that although he wouldn't have a monopoly on the entire DNS, he'd have a monopoly on his part of it, and there's reasons not to like that situation. I am reminded of the situation with 800 numbers before and after portability. Before portability, various prefixes in the 800 number space were handed out to specific long distance carriers, e.g. AT&T had 222, Sprint had 877, and MCI had 666. You could get 800 service from anyone you wanted, but once you did, you couldn't switch carriers without changing your number, which would be a problem in the common case that a business had advertised its 800 number, told customers about it, etc. Carriers did (and to some extent still do, although they're not supposed to) play games with hoarding numbers that spelled desirable words, requiring expensive long term contracts and other tie-ins to get the numbers, and once you had a number you were trapped unless you were willing to go to the expense of changing to another 800 prefix. This is quite analogous to a non-shared registry. The FCC decreed that such non-portable 800 numbers were a bad thing and mandated portability. Now, 800 numbers come from DSMI, a company owned by major telcos, and the 800 carriers compete on price, service, reliability, and everything except what number you use. DSMI doesn't make any money (it may even be non-profit) but that's OK because it exists to serve the long distance vendors who make plenty of money by selling a bundle of services of which 800 numbering is only a tiny part. It seems to me that if there's one thing that the experience with the Internic has shown us, it's that monopoly stand-alone registries are not a model that we want to perpetuate. If, as seems likely, shared stand-alone registries can't make money, well, OK, those are the breaks. This isn't very good news for anyone who was planning to make big bucks as a standalone registry, but I don't recall anyone ever making any promises that it'd be possible to do so. Anyone who was planning a monopoly registry should go find a real business, and good luck to you. - -- John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - Stanford econ prof ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Aug 1996 21:24:28 -0700 From: chris@kosh.punk.net (Christopher Ambler) Subject: Re: New Non-Shared TLD's Create More Monopolies John, your 800 analogy doesn't work, however, because 1-800 and 1-888 are the simple commodity, and portability is irrelivant to the actual number issued. MCI's 800 number is the same as AT&T's 800 number from the point of view of the customer. .BIZ, however, is a much more desirable commodity than .C47 is, irrespective of sharing issues. The ability of the registry to select a TLD to sell is paramount to the marketing of that TLD. Without it, the business aspect of running a registry just aren't worth the trouble. The exclusive use of .WEB is integral to our business plan, for example. If we were just yet another registry selling one of any number of TLDs, it would be meaningless to advertise, as that advertisement would benefit our competing registries as much as ourselves. I could go on, but I think I've made my point, and we simply have a philosophical difference of opinion on the model here. Unlike others, I'm not going to flame and flame to make a point that I think I've made :-) Christopher Ambler President, Image Online Design, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Aug 1996 22:20:55 -0700 From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: New Non-Shared TLD's Create More Monopolies In article <199608170424.EAA19725@kosh.punk.net> you write: >John, your 800 analogy doesn't work, however, because 1-800 and 1-888 >are the simple commodity, and portability is irrelivant to the actual >number issued. MCI's 800 number is the same as AT&T's 800 number from >the point of view of the customer. .BIZ, however, is a much more >desirable commodity than .C47 is, irrespective of sharing issues. I fear you have the analogy backward. I want a .BIZ registered by one registry to be the same as a .BIZ registered by another registry, so the registries can compete on price, features, quality of service, etc. just like long distance companies do. Also, you can't have it both ways: if .BIZ is a wonderful name for a domain, it doesn't need a bunch of monopoly subsidized advertising to succeed. All it needs is a way for people to register in it. Incidentally, 800 numbers are not commodities once they've been assigned, or if they spell something of interest to the user. (For example, my 800 number spells my wife's name. No other 800 number, regardless of carrier, has that property.) That's why several million 888 numbers that match desirable 800 numbers are reserved at the request of the 800 number owners, and why the FCC requires that you can change carriers without changing your number. I think it's equally important to be able to change registries without changing your domain name. >The ability of the registry to select a TLD to sell is paramount to the >marketing of that TLD. Without it, the business aspect of running a >registry just aren't worth the trouble. We agree there, so long as by registry you mean a stand-alone registry. What we disagree on is what it means: you appear to believe that it means that therefore we need artificial monopolies to prop up registries, I believe it means we need a different business model than stand-alone registries that market their domain names. I also agree that neither of us is likely to change the other's mind, so I'd just as soon get along with designing some shared TLDs to see how well they work. - -- John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - Stanford econ prof ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Aug 1996 22:22:03 -0700 From: "David R. Conrad" Subject: Re: New Non-Shared TLD's Create More Monopolies Chris, I think you've made John's point for him: >BIZ, however, is a much more >desirable commodity than .C47 is, irrespective of sharing issues. Exactly. Thus, the organization which has the exclusive use of .BIZ can use monopolistic practices to set whatever price they want. If, on the other hand, .BIZ is a shared TLD, the registries playing in .BIZ would have to compete on service levels, value added services, etc. >The ability of the registry to select a TLD to sell is paramount to the >marketing of that TLD. We are talking about the ability to select a word or an acronym here, not the ability to come up with a unique business concept, as such it is very much like prospecting for gold on public lands. >Without it, the business aspect of running a >registry just aren't worth the trouble. The exclusive use of .WEB is >integral to our business plan, for example. So you are arguing that unless you are guaranteed a monopoly, it is pointless for you to compete with other organizations on offering registration services in .WEB? >If we were just yet another >registry selling one of any number of TLDs, it would be meaningless to >advertise, as that advertisement would benefit our competing registries >as much as ourselves. Well, you'd have to advertise on why your service is better than your competitors. I perosnally do not think it appropriate to rely on the existance of a monopoly to make money -- I feel it is better to provide added value in a competitive market to make money. I suppose one compromise would be to treat TLDs like copyrights or patents, e.g., the originator of a TLD be given a limited exclusive use period (say one year?) in which to recover the costs (??) of the effort in coming up with the idea of the TLD (clearly, I do not think the costs that significant). Cheers, - -drc
