Hello All, The following statement was approved by a large number of registrars today, and presented on their behalf by the chair of the Registrars Constituency: Bhavin Turakhia, from Directi. It was not a formal statement from the "Registrars Constituency" as this requires a formal voting process that takes several weeks. Regards, Bruce "Registrars trusted the ICANN Board and ICANN staff to act on behalf of the ICANN community in negotiating a new contract with Verisign for .net. Registrars consider there to be a breach of trust by the ICANN Board and the ICANN staff in approving a contract with Verisign regarding .net that contains significant changes from the draft .net agreement posted on the ICANN website, without public consultation. We believe this is a breach of the intent of the transparency provision (Article III) of the ICANN bylaws that states that ICANN shall operate to the extent feasible in an open and transparent manner and consistent with procedures designed to ensure fairness. This is not the first time this has happened. When the new transfers policy was implemented, Verisign negotiated a change in the registry-registrar agreement with the ICANN staff, which was approved by the ICANN Board, to accommodate the transfers policy that contained changes beyond purely for the purposes of the transfers policy without any public consultation. ICANN staff gave an undertaking to registrars that this would not happen again. It is the registrars view that this verbal undertaking was breached. The changes to the .net agreement that specifically concern registrars are: - the maximum price ($4.25 including the ICANN registry fee) put forward by Verisign in the .net application only applies for the first 18 months of the new agreement. After that Verisign is free is set any price. Registrars want the maximum price fixed for the duration of the agreement. - Verisign is excluded from new consensus policies that relate to the introduction of new registry services other than what is in the new .net agreement. Registrars want Verisign to continue to be subject to consensus policies in this area. - ICANN may not change the above terms in a renewal of the agreement. Registrars want ICANN to have the ability to negotiate a lower maximum price at the time of contract renewal."