Translations:Registry/10/en

ICANN's Reasons for Policy Change on Vertical Separation

The ICANN Board enumerated ten reasons to support its policy change on vertical separation:

1. None of the proposals submitted by the GNSO reflected a consensus opinion; as a result, the Board supported a model based on its own factual investigation, expert analysis, and concerns expressed by stakeholders and community.
2. ICANN's position and mission must be focused on creating more competition as opposed to having rules that restrict competition and innovation.
3. Rules permitting cross-ownership foster greater diversity in business models and enhance opportunities offered by new TLDs.
4. Rules prohibiting cross-ownership require more enforcement and can easily be circumvented.
5. Preventing cross-ownership would create more exposure to ICANN of lawsuits, including anti-trust lawsuits, which are costly to defend even if ICANN believes (as it does) that it has no proper exposure to such litigation.
6. Rules permitting cross-ownership enhance efficiency and almost certainly will result in benefits to consumers in the form of lower prices and enhanced services.
7. The Rules of Conduct, which is to be part of the base agreement for all new gTLDs include adequate protections designed to address behavior the Board wants to discourage, including abuses of data and market power...
8. Case by case re-negotiation of existing contracts to reflect the new cross ownership rules will permit ICANN to address the risk of abuse of market power contractually.
9. In the event ICANN has competition concerns, ICANN will have the ability to to refer those concerns to relevant antitrust authorities.
10. ICANN can amend contracts to address harms that may arise as a direct or indirect result of the new cross-ownership rules.