Re: Competition; was Re: [Membership] ICANN: The Issue of Membership---

[Greg Skinner <gds@best.com>]

Michael Sondow <msondow@iciiu.org> wrote:

> Greg Skinner a écrit:

>> Under the current policy, registrants do not have domain names "under
>> their control," regardless of whether they are administered through
>> NSI, through the ISP, or through some other domain name hosting
>> service.

> How is that? Aside from the dispute policy, NSI won't restrict my use of my
> domain name, so far as I know.

I am referring to the dispute policy.

>> However, using domain names under the control of the ISP, or some
>> other domain name hosting service, does not involve NSI in any
>> potential lawsuits that might arise from name conflicts.

> That's true. But it involves the domain name user in a relationship with the
> ISP that isn't to the users advantage, especially when he or she is
> paying a small amount of money to the ISP. In effect, the website
> belongs to the ISP and not the user. It can't be moved to another
> ISP. Anyone who's had both types of websites knows exactly what I'm
> talking about.

Actually, I disagree.

The *website* is not the *domain name*.  The *website* can be moved to
another ISP.  The *intellectual property* that is on the website
belongs to those who created it.

>For ISPs, it may be economically advantageous to have clients'
>websites addressed through a domain name that the ISP rather than the
>client has registered, but it constrains the freedom of choice of the
>website owner who, in effect, doesn't own the website but is only
>leasing it from the owner of the domain name that it's addressed
>under. You know this very well.

The website owner is leasing from the ISP the resources necessary to
provide the web site.

>No one's suggesting ISPs are evil. They just argue for what's best
>for them, like everyone else. What's best for us users is to have our
>own domain names and thus be able to change ISPs when they won't or
>can't provide us the services we want.

There really is no such thing (in current technology) as "your own
domain name" unless you are the registry.  Your domain name is
either part of the ISP's infrastructure (e.g. myname.myisp.tld)
or whatever TLD you're registered in (myname.tld).  Unless you are
controlling everything to the right of the leftmost dot, you are
not in control of the domain name.

>This is elemental free-market economics, and I can't see that it
>really needs any argumentation. I wouldn't bother to reply to you,
>except that your arguments play right into the hands of the trademark
>people, who want domain names only for themselves.

My arguments point out a practical limitation on the technology, which
is independent of free-market economics.  In any event, since the only
thing I suggested were interim recommendations for registrants until
such a thing as a shared registry exists, is widely deployed and there
is adequate policy in place to protect registrants, I don't see why
you are insisting that I am somehow playing to the trademark
interests.

--gregbo