Milton, The cross elasticity of demand measures the responsiveness of the demand for a good to a change in the price of another good. How does your example demonstrate the effect of price changes on demand? In fact, one can argue that the elastisity is zero, as even when the price of .com increases from $6 to $600,000 companies prefer to pay for the price increase instead of registering .net or .org or … The Herfindahl index is the measure typically used to determine monopoly power in antitrust cases. Nevertheless, the definition of a market is also a source of contention in such cases. What if we end up with only one new TLD that signals New York City, say .NYC? Wouldn’t that be a monopoly of the New York signal market? Nevertheless, a TLD monopoly can be a result of network effects.

I’ll let the readers decide on who has limited understanding of cross price elasticity and who is creating new definitions of cross price elasticity.

Antony, As I was trying to be clear in my comment, “the market” of a product is not easily defined in a large number of monopoly cases. Thus, the adult industry, for example, is not well defined. Therefore, identifying a monopoly of a TLD signal in the adult market is not straight forward. Nevertheless, looking at my examples, .xxx and .nyc may not be the only adult and New York City TLD signals respectively but they can end up as monopolies due to network effects, which is one of the main reasons for the popularity of .com.

What .jobs issues are you talking about, Paul? Taking side swipes at .jobs does not support your position. If anything, your insinuation in the context of this conversation has more to do with a commercially entrenched Monster.com becoming the registry operator for the generic TLD .jobs with ICANN being the one enabling Monster to use this position in some way against those they compete against. Put simply, a competition issue, right? What if ICANN, as the sole source provider, allows Kellogs to obtain the one-of-a-kind .cornflakes TLD, and what will this mean to the other cereal makers Kellogs competes against - that's your point correct? If so, then fine because this is exactly what ICANN has devised to make possible in their new gTLD implementation plan. No question about it. So Kellogs and other cereal makers suddenly have a significant business decision to make for one (or more) unique and generic TLD terms of which, for purposes here, they are none too happy about. With ICANN using their position as the sole source provider to make this all possible. If so then fine but taking swipes at .jobs to try to support your supposition is at best misinformed. For anyone interested, I think this CircleID commentary provides a far more informed view by someone who has looked under the .jobs hood: http://www.circleid.com/posts/insight_jobs_and_new_tlds_are_you_paying_attention/

Ray, The issue is about ICANN awarding any entity an implicit DNS branding advantage and as a result forcing others in the same market place to try and compete without that advantage. If some of those acquiring new gTLDs already dominate their real world market places then their dominance will simply make the underlying inequity much more apparent much sooner. This same issue applies to the allocation of .jobs – One entity, in this case yours, has acquired an implicit DNS branding advantage which others do not enjoy and they are fearful of how you might use it. No doubt if ICANN had sold the advantage to the others the contentions could be reversed. When charter compliance coalitions are formed, lawyers instructed and requests for arbitration are filed with the International Court of Arbitrations no doubt the parties involved feel the issues are important enough to expend considerable time and resources trying to get the issues settled in their favour. ICANN’s job is to provide an equitable framework; a level playing field if you like. It is the level playing field provided by the existing DNS which is responsible for much of the phenomenal success of the Internet. The 2001 and 2004 rounds were very illustrative and lessons can be learned from them. It seems some don’t want to learn or even discuss, never mind work through some of those lessons.

"This same issue applies to the allocation of .jobs – One entity, in this case yours, has acquired an implicit DNS branding advantage which others do not enjoy and they are fearful of how you might use it. No doubt if ICANN had sold the advantage to the others the contentions could be reversed." Paul, The point is .jobs was allocated and 99% of the Internet population does not know it exists. What kind of branding advantage are you referring to? A technical advantage based on DNS? Unless you are .COM how does it create this "branding advantage" that translates into significant profits? The .jobs extension already exists and it has not become a household name like a .EDU has. Just because you administrate a TLD and have a string in the DNS it does not mean you have a branding advantage. This is because people do not know you even exist. Look at the top domainers for example. They own ultra valuable one-word generic domains but the bottom line is they are not branded in the minds of users or consumers. Branding refers to how consumers perceive your brand. If they do not know who you are or that you exist there is zero branding advantage. Do not mistake branding advantage with branding potential. Branding potential is also a function of its leadership team and a strategy that is executed to create this differentiated, competitive and sustainable advantage. This is not easy stuff and technology does not create an advantage unless it is introduced into the marketplace and there is mass adoption. You could say that a .jobs TLD is brand-friendly and so are great domains such as jobs.com (which by the way is powered by no-other than Monster.com). There is a huge difference between a brand-friendly property and a property that already has a inherent brand (such as Apple, Google or Coke). It seems that you (and many other intelligent folks in the ICANN community for that matter) are confusing "brand advantage". What you mean is "brand potential". Does .TV hold a brand advantage for television sites? You would think so. But what does the market say? Why aren't all the TV stations using .TV across the board like U.S universities do for .EDU? They are not. Nearly all the television stations prefer .COM. So answer me this: If .TV has the brand advantage, why aren't all television stations using .TV over .COM? Sorry to give you the bad news but it is because they hold no branding advantage in the minds of consumers and companies that market their web properties. That said the only discussions relevant is how innovative and differentiated new TLDs can create a true branding advantage in the eyes of consumers. The TLD vanity name helps but without a strong strategic execution it is just another .JOBS, .MOBI, .TRAVEL, .AERO, .MUSEUM: 99% of the population will not know they exist and will not care for that matter. You would require 3 things to accomplish this: great marketing, a great differentiated product and Industry adoption (think .EDU). There is no major university in the U.S.A that uses a .COM for their official site. That is Industry adoption. The market always will determine your success. A vanity TLD name is just not good enough to create the kind of competitive advantage you suggest that would be truly disruptive. That said why isn't Monster.com using Jobs.com as their official site? Simple answer: Jobs.com is harder to brand than Monster.com. Look at Overstock with O.co. They changed their marketing for the holiday season to focus on Overstock.com. Why? Because it is all about how consumers perceive you and it is confusing to market 2 different web destinations for one brand. While many in the ICANN community might say "o.co" is a better domain than "overstock.com" the bottom line is Overstock generates more revenue by being branded as Overstock.com than O.co. Why? Because they built a brand and that is how consumers remember them by. Why does a URL shortener t.co work for Twitter? Because it does not conflict with the brand and it performs a function: URL shortening. It is a redirect and not a destination. Big difference. Noone will ever talk about t.co the URL redirect shortener. But they will talk about Twitter. Huge difference. Another example is Disney. They owned Movies.com and Movie.com. Their brand is stronger than those ultra valuable domains. However, those domains ended up actually hurting their brand than benefiting them. They sold them to Fandango. On a similar note, Fandango is still figuring out how to leverage them to complement their brand as opposed to cannibalize it or create confusion. The business and branding of new TLDs is not as simple as you describe it. I understand the technical DNS advantage but seriously how does that translate to an advantage that leads to sustained profitability? A DNS advantage means nothing in the business world unless it translates into significant profits. You can quote me on this: "Brands are not born, they are created." Constantine Roussos .MUSIC / MyTLD

Constantine, a little historical footnote for you is that .com never had a headstart on .edu. Come on in, the water's warm.

You are comparing apples with oranges. The .COM TLD is a generic extension that is open globally. The .EDU TLD is a generic extension that is closed and restricted to only U.S-based accredited educational institutions. Success is also in the eye of the beholder. .EDU is the Industry standard in the U.S for accredited educational institutions. .COM is not, even though they are the market leader in domain registration volume. Whether .COM or .EDU had a headstart over each other is irrelevant. What is relevant is that .EDU was adopted as an Industry standard and implemented across the board at the expense of .COM in the U.S because they could not execute this feat globally. Perhaps what we should be talking about is how to create TLDs that are Industry adopted. Problem is when you work globally the difficulty increases of Industry adoption. Remember when .EDU was launched in 1985 it was intended to serve global educational institutions not just focused in the USA. Why was this a failure? Surprise, surprise. Other countries were using other extensions, namely country-codes. So how can you create a global Industry standard and a monopoly if others are not interested in using it? You can not because you did not offer a good enough reason for them to switch since the switching costs are high since they already branded their websites using their respective country code extensions. Which brings me back to my original point. All this talk about monopolies and branding advantages made by "owning a TLD" is incorrect. .EDU failed globally but they were successful in the U.S. They executed on a strategy that was successful and they created their own distinct advantage focused in the U.S.A. Bottom line: There are so many domain options to choose from. Any additional extension added will not create a sustainable branding advantage. The switching costs are high and creating a brand is not as simple as that. Constantine Roussos .MUSIC / MyTLD