ICANN Must Simultaneously
Reveal TLD and Second-Level Registration Rules
Alex
Tajirian
August 14, 2009
I outline two possible drawbacks with the idea
of first revealing rules for the new proposed Top-Level Domains
(TLDs) and then for second-level registrations. I propose a lottery
process to initially allocate second-level domain names.
A number of people have voiced concerns about
the idea of automatically granting the winner of the TLD a monopoly
power over second-level domain registrations. We should also be
worried about the financial interest ICANN has in not providing
the rules for the two-level registrations simultaneously.
There is a lot of truth to the monopoly criticism
of the first-come, first-served process. Let's say that a hotel
chain wins ".hotels" and is automatically allowed to register all
major city names, such as "Paris.hotels". Even if the owner of ".hotels"
does not value "Paris.hotels" more than its competitors, the system
gives the owner of ".hotels" an unfair advantage by allowing it
to preempt the registrations of second-level names and later sell
them to the highest bidder. However, the viability of monopoly power
is not a foregone conclusion. Auction winners often overpay (the
"winner's curse"), and a term like "Paris.hotels" will face competition
from "hotels.com" (an already recognized brand) and "hotels.Paris".
Third, there is a traditional separation between the registry and
registrar, though ICANN's support for the separation may be eroding.
To overcome the monopoly concern, a viable allocation process is
a lottery. Parties interested in registering a second-level domain
name can submit their requests during an initial period, with the
domain name then being randomly allocated to one of them. This solution
avoids both the general domain community's aversion to auctions
and the inefficiencies that the current first-come, first-served
process can create.
In conclusion, ICANN needs
to explicitly incorporate the registration rules for second-level
domain names within the new proposed TLD-allocation process. This
information is imperative for the efficient allocation of new TLDs.
Topic tags: ICANN, new
ICANN TLDs |
