At 11:56 AM -0400 10/18/07, John L wrote:
For the sake of argument, on what right would ICANN claim that money as its own?
You beat me to it. This wouldn't be the first auction of high value domains, and in the past the money's always gone to the registry or registrar. I can't imagine Verisign agreeing to an ICANN auction of .com or .net domains.
What cases? (genuine question, pretty clueless about this!) Registries have auctioned names under new tlds, and registrars acquire names and then re-sell them. But these single letters would be names from a reserved list, not different? Which of all accredited registrars would have a right above any other? Does Verisign own the com namespace?
The reality, of course, is that no matter what the nominal procedure is, there will be auctions. The only question is who gets the money.
So why not ICANN / a trust fund. Once technical criteria were met, ORG was assigned on the basis of promised good works. Adam
R's, John
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