Re: [ga] Tiered (Variable) Pricing

[Thomas Narten <narten@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael,

One point your article doesn't seem to really touch on is the
justification for a registry using tiers for initial name sales. That
is, if such tiered pricing were allowed (for new names), I'd imagine
that (for example) names associated with Fortune 500 companies would
make obvious candidates for being charged a premium. But _why_ should
that be generally allowed? Does that really benefit the community as a
whole?

It would be one thing if companies could opt out of paying the premium
fee and simply have particular names remain unused, but in practice
the name will be picked up by someone else, and a company would feel a
strong need to purchase names to prevent this. I.e., it would be
forced to pay premium prices for defensive name purchases.

This would seem to benefit (mostly) the registry, and no one else that
I can think of, at the expense of companies forced to make defensive
purchases to protect their branded/trademarked names.

Now, I could imagine many ways to address this (including just
disallowing tiered pricing!), but your proposal doesn't seem to really
touch on the issue itself.

I suspect, however, that the key issue leading to discomfort with the
entire idea of tiered pricing is that it appears to be a windfall for
registries. After all, registries are in no way responsible for the
value associated with a name. Why should they be allowed to cash in on
a name's value (by charging more for valuable names than for less
desirable names)?

Thomas