[registrars] Thanks ... and a few suggestions

["Bhavin Turakhia" <bhavin.t@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Vint and ICANN Board,

Firstly I would like to thank the Board for the discussion we had at the
Registrars Constituency meeting, and for patiently listening to and
understanding our concerns.

One of the things that I observed was the dialogue between some of the Board
members and the Registrars. For instance queries by Mr Joichi Ito about the
business model of Registrars who are also Registrants and own thousands of
domain names.

What struck me is the fact that the domain name industry is extremely
dynamic and that we, as registrars are in constant touch with the various
nuances only because we run these businesses and are directly in touch with
consumers and their needs. I would not be surprised infact if Registrars had
in some cases a better grasp of the needs of Business users than the
Business constituency, since the Registrars have a broad and diverse base of
Business Users who are our direct clients.

I realize that the Board, in considering any decision, should ideally have
access to, and be aware of a large amount of information and industry data,
which may not be as easily accessible to the Board as it is to us
Registrars. For instance information about Registrar pricing models, how
they bundle other services along with domain names, whether pricing is
elastic or inelastic, how is a reseller model different from a retail model,
market distribution of domain names, business models prevailing in the
market etc. These and many similar questions may exist in the minds of some
of the Board members at different times.

I was happy to see the level of interest that the Board has in understanding
some issues which may be looming questions for the Board.

I would ideally like to create a process that allows this information
exchange on an ongoing basis, rather than engaging in dialogue only during
times when there is contention. We as Registrars would love to exchange
information and dialogue about any queries that the Board has. Some
unrelated examples could be -

* Describe the entire lifecycle of a domain name and show us a flowchart of
the same (this one is a borrowed question :) )
* What is the range of prices that Registrars charge to retail Customers for
domain names?
* What percentage of Registrars sell services other than just domain names?

This and other random dialogue may help stay in sync with the industry in an
easier fashion.

I put forward the following suggestions to the ICANN Board in order to help
this form of information exchange -

* We can setup an email address where ANY BOARD member may send ANY question
that they wish to ask Registrars. This question would be forwarded to a task
force consisting of a diverse set of Registrars, who will draft out a
response and send it back to the individual member or the entire Board

* Every ICANN meeting, the Registrar Constituency can make a random 10-15
minute presentation to the Board describing any specific topic of interest
to the Board. It could be the Batch pool, Backordering market, PPC, Hosting
or ANYTHING of interest etc. These presentations would be purely
informational and descriptive. They will not contain any personal
preferences or reccommendations, but rather flowcharts, data and statistics

* During every ICANN meeting we could have a 30 minute session with the
Board which is purely questions and answers. During this time, members of
the Board may ask of us any questions about anything, and we can
collectively provide perspectives on those questions


The above are simply suggestions that I have thought about in a few minutes.
There definitely could be many other ideas we can implement. The overall
idea is to try and create ongoing information exchange channels between the
Board and the constituency.

If there is general support for this concept, from the Board, then I will
attempt to implement some of these ideas or any others on a similar line.

Thanks
Best Regards
Bhavin Turakhia
Founder, Chairman & CEO
Directi
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