[registrars] Important: .com settlement agreement comments - Act now!

["Marcus Faure" <faure@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear fellow registrars,

I would like to alert those of you who have not been in the teleconf with 
ICANN staff last Monday that ICANN staff is convinced that the revised
settlement agreement should be signed and that they will recommend this to
the Board. In any case, this will not be discussed in Wellington as the
Verisign "offer" will have expired at that point.

!!! This is your last chance to get heard !!!

ICANN has provided a public comment forum that will close on the 20th.
If you are fine with the agreement as it stands, you can just sit back and
wait for Board approval. If you think the agreement is a bad idea,
GO TO http://icann.org/announcements/announcement-29jan06.htm AND SUBMIT YOUR
COMMENT. IF CAN CONTACT ANY DIRECTOR, DO IT.

Some thoughts you may consider are:

- ICANN staff was not able to explain why they support the agreement. The
  only argument we heard was that the pending litigation would be settled,
  a litigation that staff says they are likely to win
- ICANN staff felt unable to estimate Verisign's cost for a domain name, they
  did not even want to guess if it is below or above 3 USD/year
- ICANN staff did not say if they think the deal will foster competition. 
  Their only response was that "this is a complex issue"
- It is unclear why the 200MUSD development fund reports are confidential
- It seems that the 200MUSD development fund has been used to build/refurbish
  vgrs registry as this benefits the internet and enhances security and
  stability
- If .com would be rebid, the domain price would be 2.50 USD or less. 
  Signing the deal will cost internet users more than 150MUSD starting
  next year and growing

Please act now, time is running out.


Yours,
Marcus