Re: [council] FW: Statement of New Registry Services PDP
I am sure that Jeff does not need to be told this, but perhaps Amadeu does. Even without this latest proposal to vet market entry, ICANN raises severe antitrust issues. It is now and always has been an arrangement by which entry into supply of a resource (gTLD names) is controlled largely by an organization composed of suppliers, which comes very close to the textbook definition of a cartel. And although there are switching costs, the idea that gTLDs are not in the same market and do not compete against each for the same customers is to me obviously wrong; I would have fun debating this formally with Amadeu (it's always fun to win) but this is not the time or place for that. Antitrust was a major consideration during the Green Paper and White Paper phases of ICANN's development, and a specific decision was made NOT to exempt it from antitrust concerns. There is literature in respected law reviews calling attention to ICANN-related antitrust issues, such as this recent University of Illinois Law Review paper: http://personal.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/icann-antitrust.pdf In short, I agree that at this stage, Jeff and other registries can safely discuss what GNSO's role should be in developing a procedure. But I completely reject Amadeu's apologia, and the superficial assurances underlying it, and suggest that those who are serious about the permanence of these "self-regulatory" arrangements need to take the registries' concerns more seriously. --MM
En/na Milton Mueller ha escrit:
I am sure that Jeff does not need to be told this, but perhaps Amadeu does.
Even without this latest proposal to vet market entry, ICANN raises severe antitrust issues
Wrong, Milton. You certainly don't need to tell me, or anyone else, that all about ICANN raises concrens on you. We all give you credit on that. But outisde the fairly reduced circle of professional antiICANN fighters I still have to see a single serious intellectual argument on that direction. Antitrust concrns? Sure, Milton. Everytihing out there with an incidence on the market has. I spent two years working in the Eurpean Commission's Directorate General for Competition, and I remember perfectly that those bodies are paranoid-by-design. It¡s their job. But follow my argument: ICANN is as antiturst-risky as any other activity, but much less, say, than certain independnet behaviours of certain operators with the significant market poser within the rtegistry consituency, to give a simple and related example. I am saying that anyone here is violating anitrust laws? Nope, quite the contrary. I am saying that I don't think so. But ICANN-as-a-process, including aproving a process for introducing new registry system is further from the "critical risk" than other behaviors/instances/companies. Take it as you want. But my professional career does not depend on criticizing anything ICANN. Amadeu, amateur apologist ;-)
participants (2)
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Amadeu Abril i Abril -
Milton Mueller