[ALAC] [At-Large] ICANN Announcement on Domain Tasting

[Alan Greenberg]

Thanks Roberto,

The discussion of Domain Tasting and the results I was announcing are 
certainly an opportunity to raise the issues that Karl did, but they 
were never a part of the  discussion. The only monetary issue 
discussed was that there was *some* cost of supporting the volume of 
transactions caused by tasters, and this cost was born by the rest of 
us. But there was never any suggestion that either the activity or 
its removal would have a substantive impact on the registry fee.

The real point is that there was a perceived problem and a lot of 
talk, ALAC decided to initiate some action instead of just talk, and 
the ultimate result was elimination of the problem.

I am optimistic that our current GNSO-PDP on post-expiration domain 
name recovery will be a similar success story, and I encourage people 
to get involved in the PDP Working Group which has just started its 
deliberations.

Alan

At 14/08/2009 03:33 AM, Roberto Gaetano wrote:
>Personally, I would not focus on the price as the main criterion for 
>evaluating the success of the elimination of domain tasting.
>I think that the most important effect on consumers was the 
>unavailability of names, that were used instead for different purposes.
>I agree with Alan, that ALAC can be proud of the fact that it 
>demonstrated that it can indeed play a significant role.
>Incidentally, the ability of ALAC to play a significant role is one 
>of the considerations on the table in the debate that is going on 
>right now about having one or more Directors, elected by At-Large or 
>ALAC, with voting rights.
>Cheers,
>Roberto
>
>Disclaimer: I know that Karl and myself have different views on the matter
>
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: at-large-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org
> > [mailto:at-large-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf
> > Of Karl Auerbach
> > Sent: Wednesday, 12 August 2009 22:59
> > To: At-Large Worldwide
> > Cc: ALAC Working List
> > Subject: Re: [At-Large] ICANN Announcement on Domain Tasting
> >
> > On 08/12/2009 01:21 PM, Alan Greenberg wrote:
> >
> > > As the organization that started this entire policy
> > process, At-Large
> > > and ALAC can be proud of the results.
> >
> > I'm not so sure about that.
> >
> > The main problem with the massive add-grace stuff was not the
> > churn but the fact that it was a transfer of costs from the
> > "domainers", who were getting a free ride, onto the backs of
> > the domain name buying public who were paying for the
> > transaction costs and the lost opportunity costs due to the 5
> > day name lock-up.
> >
> > When you or I acquire a .com name for a year we each have to
> > pay a registry fee of about $7 to cover the purported costs
> > that the registry incurs in order to handle our transaction
> > and publish the name into the zone and operate the zone
> > servers.  We pay that fee even if we relinquish the name in a week.
> >
> > That would suggest that in June 2008, where there were
> > 15,738,292 AGP names, that the .com registry was bearing a
> > cost (at that pegged $7 registry fee) of $110,168,044/month -
> > or about $1,322,016,528/year.
> >
> > There are two conclusions:
> >
> > Either the .com registry has now saved over 1.3 billion $US
> > that we were previously paying and which it is now retaining
> > as profit.
> >
> > Or the registry fee is pegged by ICANN at a hyper inflated level.
> >
> > Either way, we the community of internet users are a Boston
> > fish - we are scrod.
> >
> > The point of this little exercise is to show that ICANN's
> > fiat registry fees, based on thing more than hot air emitted
> > by the registries and accompanied by no audit of actual
> > registry costs, is costing domain name users a very large
> > pile of money every year.
> >
> > It is long past time that ICANN be required to perform a
> > believable, public, and deep audit of registry costs and to
> > adjust the registry fee component of domain name prices to be
> > in conformance with those costs.
> >
> >               --karl--
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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