>>If Geoff or his employer was receiving money which came from registrants
>>or registrars in other *.au domains, then that would be cross-subsidisation.
>
>I'm not really focussing on the existing arrangements - rather I'm trying
>to identify some issues that might need resolution in any attempt to set up
>a solution that is robust, equitable, responsive, etc, for the longer term.

Then why not look towards the USA and see what they are doing.  That
process is about 18 months ahead of us now.

We will next have the ACA using the Telecommunications Act to force
resolution to this debate, which I must add, is growing to be much the same
as the US debate.  Just some of the names are different.

>In general, I tend to agree with that philosophy, but I think introducing
multiple
>registrars - even in SLDs like .edu.au and .asn.au, not to mention .com.au
>and .net .au - raises some issues that to date have not had to be addressed.
>
>One of those issues is whether cross subsidisation should exist in the future
>(regardless of what has happened in the past).  If no, then its easy - we
just
>let any costs fall where they may.  If yes, then we need to think about who
>subsidises who ('whom' for the pedants :) ) and what mechanism is used for
>one group to pick up the tab for the others.

No commercial entity is going to subsides the business profit activities of
another that is unrelated.

>If we say "ok, we're now going to let multiple Registrar's operate in those
>SLDs" and we get, say 10 or 20 folks being Registrars in each of those 
>domains, are we confident that all of those Registrars will have the same
>'public good' values as the existing ones?

Of course not, especially if money is concerned.  I can assure you it will
be a mess, very quickly.




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