Re: [registrars] Resellers a burden upon ICANN

[Larry Erlich <erlich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Robert F. Connelly wrote:
> 
> At 01:14 AM 6/9/04, Thomas Keller wrote:
> >I guess the point Paul was trying to make was that the complains to ICANN
> >are not related to the amount of registrations a registrar has.
> 
> Dear Thomas:  I totally reject your thesis. I'm traveling and less able to
> write my reasons.

I reject also. So let me give it a try for you as to
why: It defies common sense. 

It also defies common
sense that a reseller network is not going to create more 
potential complaints. In theory of course.  I don't have
ICANN data to back this up but I do have personal experience
with this. I can tell you that we
get 3 to 6 complaints a day regarding a certain reseller for
a registrar (that has a name similar to our name) that 
seems to have a problem refunding money to customers when a
registrar transfer fails. It's always
the same story. I can just imagine the amount of times that this
happens where we don't get the complaints. I would imagine
the reason ICANN doesn't get more complaints is that many
end users don't know how to contact ICANN or even the
existence of ICANN. After all, when I have a complaint with
the phone company it's not like I take the time to complain
to anyone other than the phone company.

Back to statistics. Of course there are mitigating factors. For example, a large
domain buyer, like buydomains.com might own 200,000 domains
which go through one or a few registrar. In a situation like that
there is likely to be no complaints to ICANN for that 200k block
of names. On the other hand a single large reseller with 200k names
at a single or multiple registrars or multiple resellers would most likely
cause complaints in ratio to the amount of names registered.

I've noticed that some of the large registrars have instituted
reseller programs where they do everything for a reseller, put up the site
take the orders, pretty much everything. They sell you the names for
a low price and encourage you to mark up the names for a few dollars. They
don't require anything, as far as I can tell, in terms of making sure
that those resellers provide support the registrants of the low priced domains etc.

Larry Erlich


> 
> OTOH, I am raising a demand that ICANN quantify their allegation.  If ICANN
> is doing work for which we must pay and it is related to registrar
> malfeasance, we should be provided with a list of the culprits and the
> number of cases thereto related;-)
> 
> This is supposed to be an open society.
> 
> Cordially, BobC

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Larry Erlich - DomainRegistry.com, Inc.
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