On 03/19/2010 07:57 AM, Carlton Samuels wrote:
I'm with Evan on this. The vertical integration issue is a business model among competing business models. So long as the ability remains with users to decide who you do business with, then it does not make a compelling case for outlawing.
Two items tend to be overlooked when talking about the fact that "the ability remains with users to decide who [which TLD/registrar] you do business with" are these: - Without the ability to lock in the terms and conditions for a very long time users are at the mercy of the TLD (no matter how its business and resellers are organized) at renewal time. ICANN created this problem by making an arbitrary, capricious, and unfounded fiat early in its life that name registrations would be allowed only in units of years from one to ten years. Why? Because ICANN said so. Those term limitations should be removed. - Without users having third party beneficiary rights in ICANN<==>registrar, ICANN<==>registry, and registry<=>registrar agreements then the user has no standing to enforce any protective provisions that might be in those agreements. ICANN has taken the highly paternalistic position that third party beneficiary rights should not be in those contracts because ICANN wants to be "the vindicator" - a desire that practice has demonstrated to be fantasy. --karl--