May I drop one thought briefly into a very vibrant discussion about Domain Tasting and how the At-Large community comes to agreement on what to say about this issue - and the others which the GNSO is dealing with. Please don't forget that the GNSO Liaison has a mailing list - you can subscribe at http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/gnso- liaison_atlarge-lists.icann.org. This, like the other working groups, is meant to have at least one person from each Region (and others are most welcome) who want to help Alan in coming up with responses to put forward to the GNSO in respect of GNSO issues. If one person from each region were to join this working group - as well as the others - then that person could help to canvas their regions on proposed statements, and indeed could propose views from their regions to the others concerned with GNSO issues. I'm sure Alan - and the other liaisions - would be overjoyed if a few more 'hands' were available to help them in their work. It can be a great deal of work just to attend all the meetings, let alone to then have to propose responses and chase the views of the whole community as well. On 8 Jul 2007, at 23:53, Michael Maranda wrote:
Some have argued the increase was trivial, given people's intuition of adjustments for inflation, etc., and also with a sense that prices were stable for a period (after the initial decline). As you would gather from my prior post, its pretty much nonsense (computing and teleconnectivity costs should be going down, down down).
The material on price increases well in advance of the actual increase taking effect is disgusting and disturbing. They appear to be taking a page from the Oil cartels.
Again, referencing the gentleman from Tucows... exclusive contracts were won in part by expectations of price decreases.
At-Large should have some strong words on this matter for the Board of Directors, however, there is a sense that we are supposed to build up our credibility through "productivity" first.
Could we send a statement to the board reporting these increases to the Internet Community, as Danny indicates, well in advance of the official date... and echoing the sentiment that good stewardship demands better?
On 7/8/07, Danny Younger <dannyyounger@yahoo.com> wrote: Re: The small increase may seem trivial, but the principle is more important.
The price increase (which won't go into effect until October 15) is not trivial -- registrars are already raising their prices in anticipation of the price increase:
"AIT Domains says that under the promotion all domain names will cost $6.49 until July 6. However, due to recently announced price increases from ICANN, AIT Domains says it's being forced to raise its prices. Rates are currently scheduled to go up to $8.49 per registration year on July 9."
http://www.thewhir.com/marketwatch/ 070307_AIT_Holds_Fourth_of_July_Special.cfm
What's more important than all of this is the issue of bad decision-making on the part of the unaccountable ICANN Board. The Internet community has no way of "throwing the bums out" because ICANN remains accountable to no one.
Until this problem is solved it really doesn't much matter what the community consensus is on the AGP or anything else... ICANN remains free to ignore the voice of the people.
Presently, ICANN profits from the consequences of domain tasting... the more names that are tasted, the more names that will eventually be registered as some of these names can successfully be monetized. Profits for the registries, profits for the registrars, profits for ICANN... there were about 16 million new registrations last year (a good chunk of them the direct result of tasting activities).
Don't expect to prevail on this issue without putting up a spectacular fight and screaming for action at every opportunity -- convincing a corporation to kill a lucrative cash cow can only be an uphill battle.
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