Towards fair, open, technically sound global Internet policy.

A rebuttal to: http://www.gtld-mou.org/press/core-6.html

This article is http://www.open-rsc.org/press/article1.html

>
>Key Differences in Domain Name Administration
>                       Existing  USG Green Paper  CORE Plan     ORSC
> Immediate transition
> to self-governance      No         No             Yes           YES

Comments: ORSC believes a self governing customer coop model with representation from registries, registrars and name-server administrators is a better model and should be implemented as soon as possible.

>                       Existing  USG Green Paper  CORE Plan     ORSC
> Continued
> government
> involvement             Yes         Yes            No           YES

This is a good thing. Currently the US government funds and operates about half of the worlds root servers. To suddenly remove them raises instability issues. We favor a phased transition to the private sector, but recognize that governments of the world are also stakeholders in the DNS and should have some involvement as any recognizable group should.

>                       Existing  USG Green Paper  CORE Plan     ORSC
> Creating or
> maintaining
> monopolies              Yes           Yes         No            N/A

All TLD's are not run by a single charter, as there are may types of TLDs that have different functions and meanings. Currently is is not possible to "share" the .GOV TLD, and ORSC does not want preclude any model.

This is one of the most emotionally charged issues, and preys on fear of price gouging related to monopolistic practices based on Network Solutions $50 fee (new registrations are $100, for two years in advance). This fee drops to $35 April 1, 1998, and currently no CORE registrar charges less than $50/yr, some charging $95/yr. So, the NSI monopoly charges less than the CORE "shared" system charges!

The registries involved with ORSC believe the public is justifiably concerned about "lock in" (where an initial low price is charged and then raised later) and "price gouging" and have proposed a code of ethics that requires registries to plainly state (and not deviate from), a price schedule and a price raising policy. So far none have been observed to in crease prices more than the cost of living, plus allowance for fiscal realities such as currency fluctuations.

CORE's insistence that is not a monopoly is patently FALSE on the face of it, as Emergent is the single company that maintains the CORE database, and thus is a monopoly. Recently the price of a domain registration in a CORE registrar went from $0.50 to $15.00. If thats not monopoly gouging, what is? Also, in the CORE model, the consumer cannot buy "wholesale" directly from the registry, they must purchase a domain through a "middle man" who may not add value to the domain but will mark it up. ORSC does not mandate this model and believes most, if not all, domain name consumers are intelligent enough to use a web form to register a domain name for themselves or for their organization. For those who are not there are currently hundreds of companies that can do provide registrar services. ORSC believes that no formal "middle man" arrangement is required - there is no technical reason for it, so it is merely a political ploy to break the existing NSI monopoly.

New startup registries do not need to be broken up, since they must compete in any case, and adding competitive registries will also help to force NSI to compete. The registrar industry is already well founded, and all it needs is an open market in which to operate. The CORE monopoly would of course require the same anti-monopoly policy that NSI now requires, since CORE is nothing more than a proposed monopoly replacement of the NSI monopoly, with one single registry operator for all registrars and registrants.

>                       Existing  USG Green Paper  CORE Plan     ORSC
> International
> consensus-building       No         No             Yes          YES

ORSC has representation in many countries. We do not believe CORE's appraisal that he green paper does not have international consensus as the GP plainly states this is an objective. Further, ORSC is totally open to participation from any cooperative registries in the world.

>                       Existing  USG Green Paper  CORE Plan     ORSC
> Artificial limits of     Yes         Yes           No           NO

ORSC does not believe in "arbitrarily artificial limits" to the number of top level domains, but realizes there are very real technical limits to the number of technical domains. The GP states an initial number of new TLDs should be immediately added with more to follow. CORE believes an initial number of TLD's should be added with more to follow, so, CORE's position here is a little hard to understand.

ORSC believes TLD's shout be added not by number of TLDs, but by *rate of insertion* in a round robin manner from all TLD applicants. This is a key issue, in that setting any arbitrarily low limit creates a zero-sum game situation wherein those who are awarded TLD slots must win them away for other candidates who may be equally or better qualified. Opening up the arbitrary limit in favor of a rate of insertion will convert that situation to a win/win game wherein it is positively useful for all TRLD operators to cooperate in coordination of ROOT operations.

>                       Existing  USG Green Paper  CORE Plan     ORSC
> Not-for-profit
> registries, public
> trust                    No           No            Yes       YES/NO

Yes, ORSC supports Not-for-Profit registries, but does not require all to be so. Several ORSC registries, consistent with the charter of their TLD operate on a not-for-profit basis. There is a school of thought that says a for-profit model is required to sustain the infrastructure required to run robust service. CORE has so far spent $1M on their infrastructure and at this time requires another round of capitalization. Thus there are no convincing facts to support the idea that not-for-profit is a good thing in and of itself.

A very thorough analysis by the US Federal Trade Commission observes that the for-profit/not-for-profit argument is fairly moot. This analysis can be found at http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domain http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domain name/130dftmail/scanned/FTC.htm

No, ORSC does not support the "public Trust" policy argument. The "public trust" argument is a dangerous one. The Internet is a collection of *private networks* and were it to be declared a public trust network, it would be illegal under ITU treaties. The ITU is one of the controlling bodies of CORE

>                       Existing  USG Green Paper  CORE Plan     ORSC
> Potential for
> price-gouging           Yes        Yes             No           NO

ORSC does not believe any registry should operate without clear fee and policy explanations. An educated consumer can make intelligent decisions.

>                       Existing  USG Green Paper  CORE Plan     ORSC
> Shared registry
> system                   No         Yes           Yes          YES

CORE has a *single* registry, shared by many registrars. ORSC believes in the need for multiple independent registries that many registrars can register into. A single registry is considered a single point of failure in terms of policy, technical and fiscal bases. The recent $0.50 to $15.00 price hike clearly demonstrates this to be a fact.

>                       Existing  USG Green Paper  CORE Plan     ORSC
> Assures
> competition              No          No            Yes         YES

ORSC believes in multiple registries and multiple registrars, operating in an open competitive market. Competition is born of open markets, not of monopoly registries with hordes of independent sales people marking up monopoly prices registrations.

>                       Existing  USG Green Paper  CORE Plan     ORSC
> Name portability for 
> users                    No          No           Yes           NO

There are many problems with the untested concept of name portability.

>Name portability exists within the shared-TLD model, but does not exist in other delegation methods. Certain TLDs are for specific purposes/organizations and require close control of the name registrations (.INT, .GOV and some country TLDs for example). It is not possible for these domain names to become portable at this time. In the shared-tld model, certain similar limitations also exist. The domain name applicant can only change registrars. If they want to change their registry, then they must start over within a new top level domain.

The portability issue sounds good on the face of it, but is still untested and stems from the telephone 1-800 idea. To see how this does or does not work in practice, see: http://www.newdom.com/issues/sharing/

>                       Existing  USG Green Paper  CORE Plan     ORSC
> U.S.-based IANA         Yes          Yes           Yes          NO

ORSC believes in International representation, and does not call for the entire DNS ROOT to to be held captive by the U.S.

>                       Existing  USG Green Paper  CORE Plan     ORSC
> Single dispute
> resolution process       No          No            Yes          NO

Domain name law is in it's infancy, and until this is codified by the countries of the world, we do not believe anybody has all the answers, so, we are willing to see several models of dispute resolution mechanisms to explore the possibilities. One of the original gTLD-MOU architects, Sally Abel, has blasted the current CORE dispute resolution mechanism as being too onerously in favor of trademark holders at the expense of domain name holders. It is also important to note that the gTLD-MOU agreements currently in place have changed from what was originally signed by the MoU signatories, without any ratification!

>                       Existing  USG Green Paper  CORE Plan     ORSC
> Government
> dictated technical
> standards               No           Yes           No           NO

Governments, as just like other recognizable organizational bodies should have input into the process, but policy must be a well reasoned compromise between technical, operational, legal and administrative sectors of the Internet community.

>                       Existing  USG Green Paper  CORE Plan     ORSC
> Collaboration on
> new technical
> standards                No          No            Yes          YES

Again, CORE's position is difficult to understand here as CORE has rejected most innovative technical suggestions offered by non-CORE insiders..