Thank you, Milton,
You have just summarized many of the same
positions that the prospective registries
have argued for several years now.
Jay.
At 2/4/99, 06:11 PM, Milton Mueller wrote:
>The analogy is interesting.
>The "real estate" is created by the registry. It represents a reserved and
>exclusive "space" on their server. One is tempted therefore to say that the
>registry "owns" the name space (under their TLD) and that domain name
>registrants simply lease it.
>
>The obvious problem with that is that two other parties contribute to the value
>of the registration:
>
>1) the authoritative root server, which creates global visibility for
>registrations under the TLD; and
>
>2) The domain name registrant, who creates equity in the name by investments in
>content and marketing. These appear to be sunk costs -- superficially, it seems
>that the value of the name cannot be carried away if the name registration is
>lost.
>
>However, the more I think about the fundamental issues of ownership and property
>rights, the more sympathetic I become to the idea of proprietary registries, or
>at least some model that allows shared and proprietary registries to co-exist.
>The key is to understand how contracting among the parties can overcome problems
>of who gets to capture the value of a co-owned resource.
>
>Many problems associated with the "lock-in" and the domain name registrant's
>equity could be overcome by various competitive and contractual mechanisms. IF
>there is an open market for registries, there would be competition over the
>terms and conditions of the registry-registrant contract. It is not difficult to
>imagine contractual arrangements that would offer domain name registrants
>various degrees of protection. Such contracts would create a competitive
>advantage for certain types of registrants. For example, there could be
>agreements that if the registrant moved to a different registry, losing the
>name, that the abandoned name would not be utilized by the registry for a year,
>and do nothing but automatically forward hits to the new name. This would
>dramatically reduce switching costs. It is also possible to imagine consortia of
>registries that enter into cooperative agreements to permit shared registration
>among themselves.
>
>While a proprietary model offers a great deal of flexibility and room for
>innovation, a forcible and uniformly shared model do not. That is, via contract
>and competition, a proprietary model can encompass most of the benefits of a
>shared model. But the reverse is not true. A shared model eliminates variety and
>competition on the dimension of the registry-registrant contract.
>
>This is already turning into a dissertation and I haven't dealt with the
>authoritative root server and its relationship to the ownership issue. My
>feeling is that it is the root, not the registry, that should be treated as the
>"essential facility" and handled as a public trust.
>--MM
>
>Esther Dyson wrote:
>
>> Trying an anaolgy:
>>
>> The character string is land; the name is akin to real estate improvements.
>> You should be able to own the improvements to the land you have made - the
>> value you have created - but what about the underlying land? How do
>> you/Should you - keep them separate? Is there a public right of way?
>>
>> Where does the metaphor break down? How does it work? (And note that there
>> are lots of arguments about land, too!)
>>
>> Esther
>>
>
