Cost-recovery (was: Re: [bestbits] [governance] Ad hoc Best Bits strategy meeting tomorrow lunchtime)

[Adam Peake]

On Nov 8, 2013, at 3:11 AM, John Curran wrote:

> On Nov 7, 2013, at 3:13 AM, Adam Peake <ajp at glocom.ac.jp> wrote:
> 
>> And somehow all this must be paid for.  UN is slashing budgets, the ITU has no cash, so some global tax likely to be suggested (again.)
> 
> Presently the critical Internet resource registries are paid for by
> those who directly make use of the registry services (in the case of
> DNS, registries and registrars; in the case of IP addresses, the RIRs
> collectively pay into ICANN; the IETF protocol parameters are seen as
> a nominal cost which is absorbed by the system.)
> 


well the RFC editor function is hardly nominal.  And someone from this new institutional arrangement will have to find that $1 million (or whatever it is now).  

Don't get me wrong. I think the proposals Parminder's suggesting are completely unworkable, have not been thought through, naive, serve only to promote the interests of a few governments, and no one else: certainly not civil society.  Which is why when Parminder asked people a month or so ago to sign on to a statement promoting those ideas many of us said they were not supportable.  That statement received no support on any of the lists civil society uses to coordinate participation in Internet policy discussions (not that the lists are representative of the whole of civil society.) 


> If we're talking about additional mechanisms needed to keep the various
> infrastructure registries running, why wouldn't that be also borne by 
> the direct registry "customers"? Or are you thinking about costs from
> additional mechanisms for discussing Internet public policy matters in 
> general?
> 

Sorry if I wasn't clear.  I think the proposal for these new mechanisms absolutely wrong. I tried to explain why.

Adam




> /John
> 
> Disclaimers:  My views alone...(No discussion of additional costs or 
> coverage of same has been held by the ARIN community or ARIN Board.)
>