[registrars] Regarding introducing registry services

["Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello John,

A question has come up a few times in the registrars constituency in
relation to the existing registry agreements.

The basic question I think is:

Is the current registry agreement intended to be in the form of an
outsourced arrangement where a registry operator provides a specified
service (e.g domain name registration) for a specified price (e.g $6)
for the ICANN community, OR is the registry agreement intended to be in
the form of a licence right to operate a particular TLD and generate
revenue based on the services possible from such a role (subject to some
maximum price controls on core services)?

If it is the former, then the ICANN community could decide that a new
service is desirable, and this could be subject to some sort of RFP to
provide.

If it is the latter, then the licence for a tld is similar to the
licence a registrar provides a registrant for a second level domain (ie
anything is possible at third (xyz.abc.com) and subsequent levels within
the standards of the DNS).   Registrants may currently operate their own
nameservers for the second level names, and these nameservers may vary
in their behaviour.  Registrants can decide how they wish to allocated
names at levels below the second level (e.g xyz.au.com).

I would like to see this question addressed within the registry services
issues report.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin