Know? No Policy Against Registry-Registrar Cross-Ownership — Did You

ICANN has never had a formal policy against registry-registrar cross-ownership.

ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom has responded to European Commission Commissioner Neelie Kroes on the issue of cross ownership between domain name registrars and registries, also know as vertical integration.

Kroes sent a letter to Beckstrom in June expressing concern over vertical integration and potential competition concerns.

Beckstrom explains (pdf) that ICANN has never had a strict policy against registry-registrar ownership. We all know that Afilias had a number of registrar owners.

Here’s how Beckstrom explains it:

Some have had the misperception that ICANN adopted a formal polity that restricted any registry from owning more than 15% of any registrar. That is not the case. ICANN has never adopted any overarching policy that restricts the ability of a registry to own an interest in an registrar. Although ICANN’s agreement with VeriSign (and certain other registries) does limit VeriSign’s ability to own an interest in a registrar, ICANN has long permitted registrars to own interests in registries (and a number of registrars today do own interests in registries). The “15%” limitation referenced in the [European Commission’s] Non-paper was the product of negotiation (not any policy development process) and was intended to apply only to the parties to that particular contract (signed in 1999), at which time Network Solutions was the only commercial Internet registry and the only commercial Internet registrar.