Hello, I found the following interview of Ron Wiener very interesting:
http://www.sao.org/newsletter/companies/woody01-02.htm in particular: "We have one- to five-year exclusive relationships with most of our partners. It was almost accidental when we went to these companies initially and wanted to partner with them; they couldn't picture how big this was going to be. Most said, "Sure, you want an exclusive relationship for back ordering? Yeah, whatever." And now back ordering has become everything, and we're locked in." I've always wondered why there were always a couple of supporters of WLS, despite all the logical reasons against it (anti-competitive, anti-trust, anti-consumer, higher costs, etc.). Now it begins to make sense. Those "partners" of SnapNames are trapped in long-term deals that they can't get out of, making below-market rates for their valuable registry connections. It would seem that the only way those registrars can get out of those relationships, if indeed they are looking with envy at the success of other competitive registrars who are innovating and winning new consumers with their competitive offerings is to vote for WLS, despite the bad taste it would leave in their mouths. I think this is a factor that should be considered in this debate. If Verisign, for instance, is one of the trapped parties, it has a great interest in doing whatever it takes to escape from a bad deal. If WLS goes through, though, consumers and other market participants will have no way to escape from the bad deal, as there's no way to put the genie back in the bottle once it's out. Sincerely, George Kirikos http://www.kirikos.com/ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com
