Dear Evan,

thanks for your response to my prior email. I think that we are aligned in wishing that the ALAC represents the interests of Internet Users and not solely Registrants. So I'd like to point out a few things below:

On 26/06/2019 15:16, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
On Wed, 26 Jun 2019 at 05:05, Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com> wrote:
 
I agree with you that the price of domain names for end users to register is too high.

That statement, in a nutshell, explains one of the most fundamental things wrong with ALAC.

Confusing end-users with registrants happens far too often within ALAC for our own good. Their interests are not identical and really never have been. And it is the source of genuine conflicts of interest that happen within ALAC, not bogus ISOC conspiracy theories.

There is no confusion in the sentence I wrote: until the moment when an Internet User has registered a domain, they are an Internet User. Once they have registered the domain, they become a Registrant, but also remain an Internet User.

ICANN has always operated on the BS premise, propagated by the domain-selling industry,  that every person and entity on earth is a potential registrant who simply hasn't yet been convinced to buy one. Besides being simply wrong, this approach has infiltrated ALAC culture to the point where we're defending the interests of registrants rather than end-users.  And in price caps we have an absolutely classic example.

That is incorrect. The fact that the ALAC primarily defends the interests of end users that are not registrants, is a major point of disagreement that the ALAC has with NCUC who defends the interests of Registrants. I heard it again this week that one of the rules for joining NCSG is to have registered a domain name. It is a tick box that is included in the NCSG individual application form ( https://members.ncsg.is/individual_application ) and in the NCSG organisation application ( https://members.ncsg.is/organization_application )

Reading the ALAC Statement relating to price caps, I have to repeat it again: the Statement concludes that "So, we are essentially grappling with competing considerations and uncertainties. After balancing the same, we do not find support for a particular position regarding the removal of price caps."

How does this equate to "the ALAC is defending the interests of registrants rather than end users"?

Kindest regards,

Olivier