[governance] ICANN taxes/fees

[Vittorio Bertola]

Avri Doria ha scritto:
> one of the prominent arguments against any subsidy program was (to  put 
> it simply, more simply perhaps then it is): if you can't afford  (or 
> raise funds for) the fee for a registry then you probably can't  afford 
> to run the registry.  i disagreed, but not very successfully.   i also 
> disagree with the notion that the richer applicants should not  support 
> the poorer applicants.

I've been raising similar points on the ICANN Board list in the last few 
weeks, as there was some discussion on new gTLDs. It seems that many 
people in the ICANN community - both among those who support plenty of 
new gTLDs, and among those who would create only a few or maybe none at 
all - cannot imagine any different model for a gTLD than a big company 
or entity establishing a TLD either to make money, or to represent a big 
money-making industry (eg .aero or .tel).

I think there'd be space for smaller non-profit or community-based TLDs, 
where perhaps you don't get fully fledged customer service, but where 
you can experiment or aim at other objectives - think for example of 
Karl's .ewe anonymous TLD experiment, or of eu.org, which has been 
giving away free domain names for 10 years now, in quite a reliable 
manner. There is ample evidence that you don't need serious money to run 
a TLD, apart from ICANN's application fees.

Also, we've been raising several times the point about having 
differentiated application fees between profits and non-profits, and 
also dividing the fee in two parts, one to get the concept approved, and 
the second one, if you're approved, to cover actual contract 
negotiations. It doesn't make sense that rejected applicants cover the 
approved applicants' negotiation costs...
-- 
vb.                   Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu   <--------
-------->  finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/  <--------
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