En/na Neuman, Jeff ha escrit:

I think the statement is pretty clear. Even discussions regarding a policy development process (from those in the community that could be compeititors (i.e., registrars, ISPs, other businesses, etc.)) on new registry services has implications on competition from a legal standpoint.

Jeff, calm down. Everything MIGT have IMPLICATIONS on competition. If I tell in this list that I am travelling to Cathage with Air Europa ant not Air farnce this could also have implications... But it does not. The same way, a PDP process for new registry services, or your participation in such a discussion does not raise any (reasonable) concern regarding anitrust. For one thing, this could never and ever be characterized as a joint decision of the providers through an oligopoists coordinator desguised as a trade association, as some times has occrured. ICANN and this process does not hold any such comparison after jsut 30 secons thinking at it, even not by a non specialized, specillly ungifted judge somehwere in the Satets (as elsewhere tis less handled by courts and more by specialised, anc much less active governmental agencies). This is not ven distorted by the fact that some particpants might be customers, some other customers and providrs and some even potential competitors of such services. WLS, redemption periods, email forwarding, wildcars... have completely different effects, are completely different beast when implementd by the sole-source registry or by any peripheral, even if large, provider. And homegeinity and interchangeability are basic functions in defining any market for antitrust analysis. Moreover, it is even false that registries are competitors who should establish their business strategies in complete independence. They are only competitors in a very limited way, mostly form a suplly side view, but rarely from a demand side (whcis is much more important in antitrust analysis). If I am a .biz registrant, I will not move to lcom because they offer SiteFinder or not, WLS or not. I could choose one domain over another beacuse o its features only wen I first register it, than I am stuck with whoever runs the registry, however it runs. And this is not tribial: which part of the revenue is new registrations, and whic is renewals? Not trivial, I udnerstand... If I am a regiatrar or a simple DNS user (as user of domains registerd by others) once again, I dont see any competitive benefit/loss in a registry introducing a service or not. This may enhance my dns experience or worsen it, full stop. But form that perspective, has llttle to do with competition. And Nominalia or Melbourne IT will not, because they cannot, cease to offer .com names no matter how much they like or dislike SitFinder, to give a recent example. Let's be serious, Jeff. If you want a couple of solid antiturst concenr, think about what rasises more attention about competition: prices. Look at the prices offered by the different registries to its customers. Sure, many concerns are removed by the way the prices came up in some cases, and the contractual provisons with ICANN. Hmm, this process eases those concrns, instead of reinforcing them. But perhaps does not solves them completly, who know... The second serious concren is that, given the fact that, to a certain extent (regaridng to most existing customers and to some proscpective customers) the registrties are not competitors but in fact a series of differntly sized parallel monopolies (as a natural a monoply as you might wnat, but a single-source provider and a monopolist) some busienss behaviors of some of them really approach what many could see as as an abuse of dominant position, in European antitrust terms. Glad to see that you are finally particpating in today's teleconf. And regardng your petition to set aside the process until we get a genral opinion, I would certainly oppose that, and perhaps consider moving on our only possible direction (working to have such a process) and, if absolutely required, don't implement it in concrete cases until we get such an opinion. But I won't support what Ifrankly percieve as purely dilatory tactics ("Let's not even work on it"). Meet you all later. Amadeu