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[registrars] Letter from ICANN to registrars regarding budget
- To: <registrars@xxxxxxxx>
- Subject: [registrars] Letter from ICANN to registrars regarding budget
- From: "Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2005 05:37:01 +1000
- Sender: owner-registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Thread-index: AcWDGfpNnxDTyQDES4azhD68KEpEnA==
- Thread-topic: Letter from ICANN to registrars regarding budget
Hello All,
My email from ICANN was picked up by a junk email filter, so I missed it
last week.
In case others have missed it, I have copied it below.
Regards,
Bruce Tonkin
24 June 2005
To: registrar
It has been a motivating and challenging year since we discussed the
development of the present
ICANN budget. At the outset, please let me express our gratitude for the
Registrar expression of
support for the budget and the ICANN model during the past year. We do
not take for granted
the fees paid by the Registrars and recognize the significance of those
fees. We do not cash those
checks believing they are our due but rather, we acknowledge that we
must continually earn the
right to receive those fees through ICANN's performance.
We are writing to request that you provide your formal approval of the
Registrar fee structure as
defined in the ICANN fiscal year 2005-06 budget. As discussed last year,
the fee structure
described in the budget for the upcoming year remains the same as the
previous year's budget.
That is, the budget provides for a 25-cent (U.S.) per transaction fee
and a flat fee of
$3.8 million to be divided among all active Registrars.
In addition, the flat $4000 annual accreditation fee
remains in place. This flat fee will provide Registrar access to new
registries as they are
designated with a minimum administrative burden.
ICANN has been receiving the higher level of revenue as provided in the
new fee structure since
March of this year. While we have only been receiving that new level of
support for a few
months, we are putting that money to work in the ways we discussed last
year at this time.
Initiatives
===========
ICANN has posted a plan and procedures for contractual enforcement or
compliance. We are
presently in the process of hiring three positions to initially staff
that function. In addition, we have devoted essentially a full-time
equivalent to enforcement of the consensus based Inter-
Registrar Transfer policy. This compliance function includes
rectification of transfers improperly
blocked, return of names transferred without proper authentication, and
a report describing
recommended improvements to the policy. The recommendations include
increased flexibility in
the policy where security would not be compromised and taking steps to
improve the reliability
of the transfer authentication. ICANN staff is spending considerable
resources contributing to the
study and prevention of domain name hijacking. The fruition of that work
will be presented by
SSAC in Luxembourg. We are also adding two full-time equivalents to
respond to general
Registrar requests in a timely manner.
In addition, ICANN staff has devoted considerable time and study to the
issues and potential
abuses created by the "add-storm" surrounding the batch pool and the use
of adds/deletes within
the five-day grace period. There have been workshops and proposals
describing potential
solutions to both these issues, solutions in which market forces will
continue to drive the
business segments. ICANN will work with Registrars in order to timely
implement a consensus
based solution.
ICANN is also designating new TLDs that are intended to open up the name
space and create
new market opportunities. Several new registries will be designated as a
result of the recent
sTLD round. ICANN has taken measures to ensure that the new sTLDs
release names through
accredited Registrars only in the same way as existing Registries do. In
addition, this round of
sTLD designations is serving to provide lessons for future rounds of
gTLD designations. With
the increased funding, ICANN is commissioning the studies necessary to
determine under what
conditions new TLDs can best be created to react to market forces rather
than regulation.
Additional effort is also being applied to the investigation of the
stable deployment of full IDNs
(or IDN.IDN registrations). We think that this effort will result in new
markets for many
accredited Registrars.
A major feature of the .NET agreement is the stream-lined, tightly
defined manner in which
ICANN will consider new registry services for approval. This roadmap
will provide better clarity
and predictability to Registrars in determining how to approach proposed
changes by registries
and also how to effectively pursue changes that Registrars see as
beneficial.
One of the initiatives to be taken on immediately is the re-drafting of
the Registrar Accreditation
Agreement. ICANN staff has prepared an issues list for discussion with
the Registrar
constituency in Luxembourg.
Responding to External Forces
=============================
The Finance Committee members have reviewed the budget against our
future goals. These goals
are not only desires for improvements, they are requirements imposed by
external organizations
or forces.
For example, ICANN is more than halfway into a three-year MoU with the
U.S. Department of
Commerce. That agreement specifies the path by which ICANN will become
an independent
organization. ICANN has satisfied 16 of 25 milestones on that path, all
on or before the required
deadlines. However, much work remains for the full completion of these
tasks. Investment in
infrastructure, contingency plan execution and business back-up
agreements (to mention some)
must be put into place before ICANN can become an independent entity.
ICANN has also devoted some resources by becoming involved in the U.N.'s
World Summit on
an Information Society (WSIS). WSIS and the recognition that a viable
ICANN model must
involve stakeholders worldwide has lead ICANN to globalize its efforts
with regard to ensuring
stakeholder participation. To fail in either the MoU or in the WSIS
environment may lead to a
governance model different from one that encourages innovation and
bottom-up consultation.
This is why we believe investment in these areas is so important to
ICANN, and also the
Registrar community.
Diversifying Sources of Funding
===============================
Finally, ICANN continues to diversify its sources of funding. This year,
the .NET registry
agreement was re-written in several significant aspects. First, the
successor registry, VeriSign,
will pay fees to ICANN equal to 75-cents (U.S.) per registration-year.
This is in-line with our
discussions with Registrars last year that registry fees were,
relatively speaking, too low when
compare with the business models and fees paid by Registrars. While the
altered funding scheme
has not resulted in a proposal by ICANN to reduce Registrar fees at this
writing, we expect that
further diversification in the future will lead to opportunities for the
Finance Committee to
reconsider the quantum of Registrar fees.
Conclusion and Next Steps
=========================
We are pleased with the work so far, but realize that we have more to
do. Everyone at ICANN
recognizes the importance of the Registrar community in facilitating the
development of
effective new business models in the DNS and to ICANN itself. We have
heard and considered
your concerns, ideas, and views over the past year. We will continue to
participate in
meaningful dialogue on the issues affecting the Registrar community. We
look forward to
working with you into the future while we achieve mutual goals.
Conversations with many Registrars regarding the new budget indicate
that the approval process
need not be the extended process that occurred last year. If you wish to
signal your approval for
the budget, please write an email or letter to Kurt Pritz, Vice
President, Business Operations, indicating that the writer, an officer
of the company empowered to do so,
"approves the Registrar fee structure in the FY 2005-06 ICANN Proposed
Budget".
If you have any questions regarding the budget or ICANN's initiatives,
please feel free to contact
either Paul or Kurt Pritz directly.
Thank you again for the time taken to read and consider this material.
Sincerely,
Paul Twomey, CEO
Hagen Hultzsch, Chair, Board Finance Committee
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