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[registrars] Re: FW: ICANN per-name fee at start of AGP vs at exit.

  • To: Registrars Constituency <registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Subject: [registrars] Re: FW: ICANN per-name fee at start of AGP vs at exit.
  • From: "Robert F. Connelly" <BobC@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:15:47 -0800
  • Cc: Paul Stahura <Paul.Stahura@xxxxxxxx>
  • In-reply-to: <9628550.1201818984786.JavaMail.root@m08>
  • List-id: registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • References: <9628550.1201818984786.JavaMail.root@m08>
  • Sender: owner-registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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At 02:32 PM 1/31/2008 Thursday&nbsp; -0800, Paul Stahura wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">I don't see this on the list
yet?. Am I having trouble sending to the list again?</blockquote><br>
Dear Paul:&nbsp; I'm checking the RC list to see if you are on it with
this email address.&nbsp; I suspect we have your old address.<br><br>
In the mean time, I've posted your comments to this list.&nbsp; Regards,
BobC<br><br>
<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">&nbsp;<br>
<b>From:</b> Paul Stahura <br>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, January 31, 2008 11:02 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> 'registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx'<br>
<b>Subject:</b> ICANN per-name fee at start of AGP vs at exit.<br>
&nbsp;<br>
We registrars need the AGP.&nbsp; We all know we do.&nbsp; But let me
explain why in case others who may read this post do not know why we do
or how its used.<br>
The AGP allows registrars to combat fraud.&nbsp; <br>
When users requests a registration, we registrars do not know if the
users intend to 1) pay us or 2) use the name for a purpose which violates
our acceptable use policies (such as to spam).&nbsp; The registration is
probably legitimate, though we don?t know for sure, and users demand fast
registration service, so we register the name for the user in
real-time.<br>
Now we (at least eNom, and I?m pretty sure most registrars) do not just
wait 6 months to see what happens.&nbsp; Wait and find out if the credit
card was stolen.&nbsp; If the user spams like crazy.&nbsp; What we do
(again at least eNom but probably most registrars do this) is score each
registration.&nbsp; We use email addresses in the whois, source IP,
account, and other metrics in an attempt to figure out the intent of the
user.&nbsp; We automate this as much as possible but it still takes human
judgment (our fraud prevention departments) to take all these data points
in.&nbsp; This takes time; though we try to do our checks as fast as
possible.&nbsp; Some we can do fairly quickly, others, takes days.&nbsp;
Five days was (and still is) a reasonable amount of time for us to do our
checks.&nbsp; If we determine that the user will not pay us or is likely
a spammer,&nbsp; we delete the name, and do not charge the card, or
refund the fee if it was charged.&nbsp; Obviously its in our economic
interest to charge the cards as soon as possible.&nbsp; This is the
entire purpose, in my opinion, of the AGP.&nbsp; It?s not to correct
misspellings.&nbsp; It?s to prevent fraud and reduce a high chargeback
rate on registrars (because in many cases the credit card is not even
charged, so therefore there can be no chargeback).&nbsp; I know some
registrars have had to pay millions of dollars in fines in the past for
high chargeback rates (which is why I?m fairly certain we?ve all evolved
our own, probably similar, fraud scoring systems).&nbsp; This is not a
trivial amount of money.<br>
&nbsp;<br>
OK so ICANN wants to charge the per-name fee on the day the name is
registered and not on the day names exit the AGP.&nbsp; If this happens,
then we will be paying ICANN for names which we delete due to a high
fraud likelihood.&nbsp; I propose ICANN charge us only after a reasonable
number of names (after a threshold number).&nbsp;&nbsp; This number can
be on an absolute per-cred-per-time (per day, month whatever) basis or on
a percentage basis (based on the number of names exiting the grace
period).<br>
Without a threshold I will be voting against the budget and I urge you to
do the same.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The egregious ?tasters? were doing
hundreds of thousands to millions of names per day. A threshold which is
orders of magnitude under this (and at the same time, orders of magnitude
above the number we delete in our fraud-fighting efforts) will eliminate
the giant ?tasters? (whether or not you agree on tasting as a legitimate
business practice) while allowing us to continue to keep our chargeback
rates low and reduce fraud without increasing the dollar burden on
us.<br>
&nbsp;<br>
I look forward to discussing this with you further on this list and in
India.<br>
&nbsp;<br>
Paul<br>
&nbsp;</blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br>
After all is said and done ---<br>
A lot more gets said than done;-}</body>
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