[governance] Re: [ga] Registrants

[Jeffrey A. Williams]

Karl and all,

  Thank you for the accurate and full historic review.  Furhter
I agree with your final conclusion.  However this being again 
articulated, and thankfully more fully and accurately, what now
remains/exists is what we need to get busy working on and hopefully
singificantly improving, especially on the price and costing
side.  

-----Original Message-----
>From: Karl Auerbach <karl at CaveBear.com>
>Sent: Nov 12, 2009 1:59 PM
>To: ga at gnso.icann.org
>Subject: Re: [ga] Registrants
>
>
>On 11/11/2009 12:31 PM, Roberto Gaetano wrote:
>
>> Actually, the fees for domain names were introduced in 1995 by NetSol,
>> the then monopoly Registry/Registrar, well before ICANN.
>> For the record, in 1995 registrants were paying $50 for a domain name
>> under .com, 30% of which of tax. The tax was later lifted, but the $35
>> remained until ICANN introduced the separation between registry and
>> registrar that made the prices drop.
>
>Not to put too fine a point on it, but that was not what caused the 
>prices to drop, nor has ICANN allowed prices to drop to a level 
>commensurate with what was expected of the registry-registrar model.
>
>Originally, when SRI ran the domain name registry, names were free.
>
>Then along came Network Solutions and the Cooperative Agreement.
>
>Under the old cooperative agreement, once charging was allowed at all, 
>the price was fixed by the US Gov't at $50 with $15 going to the gov't 
>as a net-users tax.
>
>That $15 tax was declared unlawful and abandoned, leaving $35 per name.
>
>The Cooperative Agreement was to have ended in 1997 or 1998 (I forget 
>which) with Network Solutions/Verisign handing everything back to the Gov't.
>
>Obviously that never happened.
>
>Because of the unexpected growth of the net the USG was poised to get 
>stuck with some cost overruns and the US Gov't couldn't act fast enough 
>(the USG takes years to do things) to find its way out of the developing 
>mess.
>
>So, as a matter of expediency, the Cooperative Agreement was amended and 
>extended several times to become the umbrella for all things ICANN and 
>Verisign.
>
>As part of this the US Gov't caused ICANN to be created by the law firm 
>of Jones Day (a firm that still continues to this day to be one of 
>ICANN's largest creditors and which still maintains considerable 
>presence inside of ICANN.)
>
>ICANN did not change the game of prices.
>
>Rather it was the US Gov't that removed the price term, leaving the 
>price to float whether there is registrar/registry separation or not.
>
>In other words neither ICANN not the registry-registrar model can take 
>the credit for the price drop.
>
>The Cooperative Agreement games were documented in great depth in the 
>Rony's book 
>http://www.amazon.com/Domain-Handbook-Stakes-Strategies-Cyberspace/dp/0879305150/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258055878&sr=8-1
>
>But ICANN can take a bow and claim credit for the price not dropping as 
>far as it could have dropped:
>
>After the Gov't decreed price was eliminated ICANN inserted-back two 
>fixed-price components: the registry fee (a fee based on nothing more 
>substantial than warm air and hand waiving) and the ICANN tax.  The 
>impact of these forms in many cases the largest part of the overall 
>domain name cost to consumers.
>
>If ICANN were to allow the registry fee component to reflect actual 
>registry costs, internet users would save the larger part of a 
>$1,000,000,000 USD per year in excessive domain name fees.
>
>		--karl--
>
>

Regards,

Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 294k members/stakeholders strong!)
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