Re: [registrars] Friendly Reminder about the Budget conference call today

[Eric Schaetzlein <eric@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Bhavin and all,

unfortunately neither Tom nor myself can attend the conference call.

But I would like to let you know Schlund+Partner's opinion on the budget draft:

First of all, we are very disappointed that the registrar's burden does not go down,
despite the promises that were made during the discussions on last year's budget.

We have seen the increase of the registrar's funding portion as a one-time, temporary favor of the
registrars in order to get the "new" ICANN up and running until finally the other ICANN stakeholders
start contributing an amount that is adequate to their participation and interest in ICANN.

Now that ICANN has significant new sources of funding, like the .net fee and the new sTLDs fees and more and more
ccTLDs paying fees, instead of honoring the registrars goodwill to help ICANN, ICANN takes our funding as granted
and instead invests the new money otherwise.

To make it short, the registrar's funding portion should be reduced as soon as the new money from other sources comes in.
And there should be a long-term plan on reducing the registrar's contribution, commited to and starting with the
day new sources of funding come in.

Second, I think the registrars contribution should have a top cap. It's bad enough ICANN doesn't plan to reduce our contribution,
but it's even worse that we are supposed to pay even more. We the transaction fee, successful registrars that have more domains
under management than last year, will even pay more this year.
In additional, this would create more fairness: small registrars have a cap on the "bottom", and large registrars should have a
cap on the "top".

Third, I think for reasons of fairness, successful registrars should contribute, regardless of what business model they are applying
to be successful. It seems that currently, registrars who use the add/add grace period delete model to make money,
don't contribute as they should. Under the current conditions, they can even apply for exemption. That is not fair to the
registrar community as a whole.

Have a productive call!

Best,

Eric


Bhavin Turakhia wrote:
> Hi everyone
>
> At 6:30 am PST we have a conference call with Kurt Pritz and probably Tim
> Cole from ICANN to discuss the 2005-2006 Budget
>
> Please find below the conference call timings and details
>
> Date: 2nd June 2005
> Time: 6:30 am PST
>
> Primary Dial-in Number: 1-800-610-4500 (Toll Free in USA and Canada)
> Alternate Dial-in Numbers:   1-702-851-3339 (for callers outside USA and
> Canada) 
> Participant Access Code: 97531
> Below is the link for the new budget for everyone to review before the call
> -
>
> http://www.icann.org/financials/proposed-budget-17may05.html
>
>
> PS: I hope I havent crossed anyone's nagging threshold :)
>
> bhavin
--
Eric Schaetzlein		Schlund + Partner AG	Tel:  +49 721 91374 0
Vorstand / CTO			Brauerstr. 48		Fax:  +49 721 91374 215
Domain Services			D-76135 Karlsruhe	Mail:  eric@xxxxxxxxxx