The price increase you are talking about is the one driven by the registries. If anything, this increase is partly to offset costs incurred because of domain tasting. If your arguments are valid, domain tasting is making money for the registries and helping to keep down the cost of registrations. Note that I am not agreeing or disagreeing on the reasonableness of the price increases, or how responsible the ICANN Board is. But I would like to focus on one issue at a time so that perhaps we can come to closure. Raising all of ICANN's ills in this one discussion is not likely productive. Call it naive, but I actually do expect to prevail on this issue despite the possible ills of the organizations involved. Alan At 08/07/2007 03:26 PM, you 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.c...
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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