RE: [ga] A Question

["Dominik Filipp" <dominik.filipp@xxxxxxxx>]

Please see my notes below

-----Original Message-----
From: Karl Auerbach [mailto:karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Sunday, November 19, 2006 6:08 AM
To: Dominik Filipp
Cc: ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ga] A Question

Dominik Filipp wrote:

> I don't understand what the costs have to do with the domain tasting.

It has a great deal to do with it.

First of all, it's more than merely Add-Grace that is at play here. 
There are several forms of 5-day free-trial "grace" periods that ICANN
allows, add-grace being only one of these.
>> That's true but it's just the initial Add Grace that has unleashed
the tasting effort and is causing this to be still flourishing. None
other grace period has been recognized harmful in such a large volume. I
know some cases concerning other grace periods but they deal with
different problems.

Now, it turns out that I actually was on the board when these were
approved.  But as a body out attention was never drawn by "staff" to the
existence of these provisions (didn't we read the contracts and
addendums?  I did, but in the hundreds of pages I missed these rather
major policies created out of thin air by ICANN "staff".)

Now, the reason that registry costs is important is because it is an
open question whether or not this 5-day free-trial stuff actually adds
to the costs of regular domain name consumers.  The folks doing these
5-day things are obligated to post some money and there are other
factors at work that might act to cover the costs that the tasters
engender.
>> I see it like your voice for eliminating AGP. After the elimination
all possible costs caused by this will be eliminated too.
Basically, no one except for the tasters makes profit out of it. Yes,
the tasters (registrars) are obligated to pay the registration fees to
the registry but after 5 days the fees are fully refunded back to the
registrar. There are no extra costs for final customers regarding this,
only the desperation when the domain name is snatched from the customer,
or being constantly taken but not paid for.

Now, I don't believe that this is the case, and if it is true that
registry costs are as low as they must be, then it is an open question
why ICANN is *raising* registry fees rather than lowering them.
>> This, however, is another story.

All in all we really can't discuss the merits of this without having a
knowledge of how much things actually cost.
>> Not only we can we even should. As a final customer, I'm not
interested in whatever money haggling among registrars, registries, or
whoever else at all. I just want to feel safe while doing domain lookups
and registering my domains. And ICANN as being considered a defender of
customers rights and a supervisor of the overall domain mechanism in
favour of customers is simply responsible for correcting inaccurate
concepts when they are recognized and identified, regardless of possible
money or any other internal procedure workaround. That's all that is to
it...
Sure, there are also other things that have to be taken into
consideration when correcting such a complex problem like the tasting is
but AGP is one of major importance to start with.

And since ICANN is building registry fees into the contracts, it is
rather important that the registry fees granted by the contracts are
based on some accounting of actual costs.

		--karl--
Dominik