At 1/5/02 1:50 PM, George Kirikos wrote: >Yes, but also look up in your textbook what a monopolist is -- this is >simply Verisign trying to make a cash grab for a market where there is >healthy competition. Why should they profit from these expired names, >at the expense of other market participants?
I agree. I didn't say the registry should get the extra profits; to the contrary, I said they shouldn't. I'd really like to see the registry operated as a regulated monopoly like the electric company (although perhaps that's a bad analogy as I'm in California). But in theory, if the registry were only allowed to make a certain amount of profit, like utilities once were, the profits could be used to lower prices on other services or do some other public good. Since that's unlikely to happen, a second option is that the extra profits go to the registrars, where at least there is competition. Verisign Registrar could fight it out with OpenSRS and everyone else. (I'm not saying this idea is perfect, either; just that it's better than giving all the money to a monopoly, which I think you erroneously thought I was suggesting.) -- Robert L Mathews, Tiger Technologies
