Re: new.net (was: Root Server DDoS Attack: What The Media Did Not Tell You)

["Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law" <froomkin at law.miami.edu>]

I dispute the accuracy of this assertion below (unless "registrars" is a
typo for "registries" in which case we agree totally and you can ignore
what follows):

On Mon, 2 Dec 2002 Valdis.Kletnieks at VT.EDU wrote:

> Notice that you don't get the lower prices and cartel breaking by increasing
> the number of domains, you get it by increasing the number of registrars.

Please explain your reasoning.  In particular, note whether you consider
registrars and registries to be separate vertical markets.  If so, please
explain how competition in a downstream market affects prices upstream.

Also, please note the vital distinction between "number of domains" (which
I agree increasing does not increase competition if the number of registry
operators remains constant) and "number of registry operators" (which I
submit *will* increase competition if this increases as the number of
domains increases -- at least if the new operators are allowed to pick
their character string and given substantial freedom to set their policies
as opposed to the ICANN model of picking strings and setting highly
restrictive policies to discourage wide use [e.g. ".coop"]). 

-- 
		Please visit http://www.icannwatch.org
A. Michael Froomkin   |    Professor of Law    |   froomkin at law.tm
U. Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA
+1 (305) 284-4285  |  +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax)  |  http://www.law.tm
                        -->It's warm here.<--