RE: [registrars] Motion for a Vote on Grace Period Deletion Fee

["Rob Hall" <rob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jay,

I am concerned that you are attempting to take away a right that Registrars
currently have because it does not suit your Registrars business model. 

Registrars have many different business models, and the market should decide
what ones work, and what ones do not. That is what competition is about. An
attempt such as yours to decide which ones should or should not be allowed
might be seen as anti-competitive or anti-trust.  As a constituency, we have
been warned in the past we must be careful when discussing or voting in
large groups to the detriment of other member Registrars, especially where
it involves our costs or artificially raising the prices of goods in
collusion as a group.

Your suggestion also treats registrars differently, giving the large
registrars a leg up over smaller ones.

You are, in effect, also suggesting changing all of our contracts with the
Registry, something that I for one do not take lightly.

It also would seem from earlier comments by others, that there is not
consensus on this.  I think a comment from Champ implied that the add grace
period was bad, because it allowed someone to have a domain for a period of
time without paying for it.  One might also argue that the 45 day grace
period after expiration does exactly the same thing.  Registrants and
Registrars have the use of the domain for 45 days, and can then cancel it
without paying for those 45 days (a period over 9 times longer than the add
grace period).  Are you also suggesting that we get rid of this 45 day
period ?  Or apply a fee for using the domain during it as well ?  Perhaps a
domain should automatically go into the RGP period the day after expiry.  I
would think that many small Registrars might see what is happening with
Registrars using the 45 day period to measure traffic, and then sell the
domains to only their clients as an abuse of that grace period, even worse
than registering a domain and deleting it in the initial add period.   One
might think that the argument about taking a domain out of circulation so
that other registrars can not register it would be far worse during the 45
day period, than the initial 5 day one.

It has also been suggested that it would solve the "contention" issue, but
frankly, this is a red herring.  Verisign has stated publicly that they are
able to handle the batch pool loads just fine.  Additionally, as someone
pointed out earlier, these adds have nothing to do with the batch pool, nor
loads on the registry.  There is no pounding of the Registry occurring here.
I would bet that there are not even any duplicate commands being sent, as is
what happens during the deletion drop.  The Registry processes tens of
millions of requests a day.  I would think they would be happy to process as
many add commands as you could give them.  I agree with Ross, that there are
already market forces in play that limit someone just adding tens of
millions of names a day.

Personally, I do not condone a Registrar adding a domain, deleting it, and
then adding the same one, then deleting it, then adding the same one,
effectively having the domain for free forever.  But there are easier ways
to deal with this type of activity.  For example, one could limit how many
times the SAME domain could be add-deleted at a given registrar. I also
suspect that the activity of keeping a domain for free forever is not what
is really occurring here.  

Alternately, you could allow domains to be registered by the month.  So that
for 1/12th of the registration cost (ie: 50 cents), a domain could be
registered for one month. I believe Verisign already allows a domain to be
extended for a month at this price, so why not allow it to be registered for
a month initially at that price.  But if we are to start down this path, it
needs careful discussion and planning, not a quick snap motion.

I recall in Argentina that Chuck Gomes pointed out that a high number of
domains had been registered, and that a high percentage of names had been
deleted.  However, when you look at the domains that were kept, it was well
over a million dollars worth of business to the Registry.  Are you sure that
you want to be taking this money away from the Registry ?  Is it our place
as Registrars to do this ?

Currently, my contract with the Registry allows me to offer a five day grace
period to my customers, so that if they decide they don't want a domain they
have already paid for, they can delete it.  For you to suggest taking away
that right, because you don't want me to offer it to my clients as a value
added service, is simply wrong.

I suggest you tread very carefully here, and you may want to re-consider
your motion.

Rob. 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jay Westerdal
Sent: Friday, June 03, 2005 5:29 PM
To: registrars@xxxxxxxx
Subject: [registrars] Motion for a Vote on Grace Period Deletion Fee

I official propose a mandatory deletion fee at the Registry.
The fee would go directly to the Registry.

Registrars must pay a $0.25 fee on every delete that takes place in the five
day Grace Period that exceeds 200 per month or 1% of the registration volume
from the previous month whichever is greater.

I need 4 more registrars to support the motion to bring this to a vote.

Jay Westerdal
Name Intelligence, Inc.
http://www.nameintelligence.com