Re: [ga-roots] Capture and Diversion (was Smart Browsers)

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Fri, May 04, 2001 at 10:37:30AM -0700, Kristy McKee wrote:
> Yes, and if I'm understanding correctly; then we need a consensus about how 
> the GA feels about participating with the other services, including those 
> like New.net's.
> 
> I personally am not pleased with the idea that the ICANN can just take away 
> anyones established business

It's called "competition".  You put up alternate roots in competition 
with the real root.  That was a silly thing to do, perhaps, but 
complaints about your own failure to compete effectively seem just a 
bit self-serving.

> any time they please

You really meant to say "after more than a year of intense and
controversy laden debate". 

> - it's not legal in the 
> USA,

Of course it's legal.

> so I have difficulties understanding why ICANN would start off with 
> this...

But you are a competitor to ICANN.  ORSC, TLDA, etc -- they are all 
trying to set up a system in competition with ICANN.  There is nothing 
illegal about that (though the special nature of the DNS root might 
warrant an exception), just as there is nothing illegal about some 
companies being forced out of business due to competition.  Happens all 
the time.

Let's be clear:  What is in competition are different ways of managing 
the root zone.

ICANN represents a particular system for managing the root zone.  It's a
complex, unwieldy, and controversial system, but it has commanding
market share, support (sometimes grudging) of governments, large
business, the Internet engineering community, and other stakeholders. 
It has baroque representational structures, and it has complex rules
regarding international involvement.  

ORSC, TLDA, and all the other alternate root organizations advocate
their competing systems for managing the root zone, and implement their
own strategies in their own versions of the root zone.  They
collectively command an infinitesimal market share, and have only the
support of a tiny comunity of would-be registry operators.  (New.net is
an interesting possible exception, but even some alternate root
proponents believe that they are merely a transient). 

People who set up registries in the alternate roots are betting that 
their scheme of root-zone management will prevail.  This is a
very high risk entrepreneurial activity -- if you win, the payoff will 
be huge, but the odds of winning are very small.  

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Be good, and you will be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain
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