On Mon, 2 Aug 1999, Ivan Pope wrote:
> > As I think you understand perfectly well, DG IV is responsible for
> > enforcing competition policies at the EU level. I don't know of any
> > European ccTLD that could be regarded as having a substantial presence
> > outside of its national market. It would be inappropriate for DG IV,
> > the European competition directorate, to intervene in the UK market in
> > regard to .UK, for example.
>
> We believe that restrictive ccTLD policies are anti-competitive within
> Europe.
I think that few readers will gather from this that Ivan is one of the
directors of Nominet, the .UK registry.
Exactly who is the "we" in this sentence? Are you saying that Nominet's
policies are anti-competitive?
> That is, a policy that restricts a ccTLD to companies that are
> 'local' or that are registered for tax within that country or that are part
> of some local organisation are clearly anticompetitive within Europe. We
> believe that the ability of our clients to compete on a level playing field
> is affected by their inability to register 'local' domain names within
> Europe.
Having read this several times, I think I understand it. Your concern
is that the .FR registry, for example, prohibits non-French companies
from registering names in .FR for their own use. I agree that if the
French authorities will not act on this, then in this specific case
(the .FR registry) you can justify a complaint to DG IV, the competition
directorate of the European Commission, this complaint being made by
or on behalf of your customers, and others similarly affected.
The complaint would be that the local authorities are acting in such
a way as to fragment the single market.
> We also believe that NetNames' ability to compete within Europe is affected
> by the 'local' requirements that stops us being a Registrar within certain
> territories. We are not able to compete effectively within some markets for
> this reason.
Agreed, as above. The EU is supposed to be one market. Any company
registered anywhere in the EU should be able to register names in any
member state; or perhaps more correctly, should be able to register
names in compliance with the same regulations as those applied to local
companies.
> We believe that it is the role of the EU to look into such anti-competitive
> situations and to remedy them. It is not about ccTLDs themselves being
> anticompetitive, it is about the NICs being anti-competitive in their rules
> and regulations.
Agreed, insofar as you are talking about some of the ccTLD registries
in some of their operations. However, as you know quite well, your
comments do not by any means apply to all of the ccTLD registries in
the EU.
The problem from the perspective of the European Commission is that
the ccTLD registries taken individually are too small a market to
justify the attention of DG IV.* I think that the bottom limit is
a market of say $25 million or so year. I think that the ccTLD
registries are on the order of 10% of that.
Taken as a whole, the ccTLD registries might be that big, but they
simply are not one market; they are separate little markets, each
with different characteristics.
On the other hand, NSI's market in Europe is large enough to
justify DG IV's attention, is a natural monopoly, and cannot be
said to be operated for the common good. What has protected NSI
so far is the European perception that NSI has been operating
under a contract with the US government.
------
* Note: the European Commission is quite small relative to the
population of the EU; only a few thousand civil servants. In
consequence, even a phenomenon as important as the Internet
has only had the part time attention of a few people. By "a
few" I don't mean 30 or 300 - I mean perhaps one person full
time, half a dozen more part time.
> > The UK has its own competition
> > authorities --
> > who have, by the way, already come to a conclusion about Nominet, the
> > .UK registry (that conclusion being, more or less, that .UK is a
> > natural monopoly but one that isn't large enough to justify regulation
> > and that in any case Nominet, the .UK registry, is being
> > managed in the
> > public interest).
> >
> > DG IV is concerned with .COM/NET/ORG because they are the
> > only TLDs that
> > have a substantial market across Europe. It would be very
> > difficult to
> > argue that their concern is not justified.
> >
> > This is not to say that DG IV's actions are well-advised at this time.
> > As I have already said, in my opinion DG IV is receiving advice from
> > others in the Commission without understanding that that advice is
> > based more on self-interest than the realities of the situation.
--
Jim Dixon Managing Director
VBCnet GB Ltd http://www.vbc.net tel +44 117 929 1316
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Member of Council Telecommunications Director
Internet Services Providers Association EuroISPA EEIG
http://www.ispa.org.uk http://www.euroispa.org
tel +44 171 976 0679 tel +32 2 503 22 65
