Hello, According to: http://www.circleid.com/posts/20090621_advocating_for_domain_name_registry_r... "PIR is joined in this concern by Afilias Limited, NeuStar Inc., the ICANN Business Constituency, and the International Trademark Association. They have all issued strong statements of concern that allowing cross ownership will harm competition and the end user community." Is there a copy of this "strong statement of concern" by the BC? The only statement I can recall as from the March 2009 newsletter that was in the context of the contracted parties house having a single voice in terms of voting power: "Contracted parties house. The new TLD process has introduced the possibility of abolishing the principle of registry - registrar separation. This increases the potential voting power and veto power of the contracted parties house." but I think little, if any discussion has taken place on the list as to the economic implications or an official position on the economics. It's clear the incumbent registry operators want to maintain the separation in order to reduce the number of entities who are able to put forth their own new TLD applications (i.e. to prevent eNom, Pool, NSI, GoDaddy and others from getting TLDs). In a real sense, both sides are anti-consumer, and vertical separation would not matter as long as the TLDs are being tendered for operation to the lowest cost bidder (as we've long advocated for .com, and all other gTLDs) for fixed periods. Both sides are just jockeying on how to split up the abusive profits from monopolistic TLDs that are "owned" by a registry. Both sides have no interest in SERVING the public, by competing for fixed-length contracts where consumer benefit is maximized through the lowest price to all consumers, as per comments by ourselves, and other parties including the DOC/NTIA and DOJ: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/comments/2008/ICANN_081218.pdf The solution is to reframe the issue from the point of view of maximizing consumer benefits through tenders, and ignoring both the registrars and the registries. There's a certain deja vu when Ms. Raad write: "The selection of this panel was not transparent. Despite repeated requests from PIR and others, ICANN has failed to disclose critical information related to this panel and the history of ICANN's ownership proposals. For example, ICANN was asked for a copy of the statement of work issued for the CRAI report, as well as copies of the documentation or instructions given to panel members. The hasty set up of the panel demonstrates a lack of transparency and community inclusion by ICANN in a critical decision." Where was she when the IRT was created? Sincerely, George Kirikos 416-588-0269 http://www.leap.com/ On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 3:39 AM, Mike Rodenbaugh wrote:

FYI the site at www.registryregistrarseparation.org.  I know this issue is of serious concern to many members.

Adam Palmer and Jeff Neuman have agree to present briefly and take questions at our BC meeting on Tuesday.

All comments welcome, and it would be wonderful if a member or two wanted to lead the BC thinking and engagement on this issue.

Thanks, Mike

Mike Rodenbaugh Rodenbaugh Law 548 Market Street San Francisco, CA  94104 +1.415.738.8087 www.rodenbaugh.com

-----Original Message----- From: Adam Palmer [mailto:APalmer@pir.org] Sent: Friday, June 19, 2009 5:51 PM To: Adam Palmer Subject: Important--Regsitry Registrar Separation issue

All,

Please see the below site on registry/registrar cross ownership.  ICANN will also be having a panel on this on Monday.  Strong vocal support is welcome both on the website and at the ICANN Monday panel meeting.

Please forward this site link to anyone else that might support our concerns on this issue.

Let me know if any questions.

Thanks,

Adam Palmer

Link:    http://www.registryregistrarseparation.org/supporters