Hey Michele,
I never knew you were on this mailing list.
I know CENTR has some excellent resources regarding European ccTLD pricing. Would you be interested in sharing some of your experience regarding ccTLD pricing increases?
I know some ccTLD Managers have recently raised prices in connection with pending NIS2 changes and recent inflationary pressure. However, historically, their price increases have not been as frequent as those
of most gTLD registries.
As I noted in my response to Pat Kane’s CircleID article, fact-based decision making is our best friend.
I welcome any future contributions that you might be able to contribute to this discussion.
Best regards,
Michael
From: Michele Neylon - Blacknight via CPWG <cpwg@icann.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2024 6:36 AM
To: jmcc@hosterstats.com; cpwg@icann.org
Subject: [CPWG] Re: Potential Topic of Discussion - NTIA & Verisign Cooperative Agreement
John
The .ie wholesale cost is NOT $25.
The wholesale pricing for .ie domains is around €14 / year.
Regards
Michele
--
Mr Michele Neylon
Blacknight Solutions
Hosting, Colocation & Domains
Intl. +353 (0) 59 9183072
Direct Dial: +353 (0)59 9183090
Personal blog: https://michele.blog/
Some thoughts: https://ceo.hosting/
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Blacknight Internet Solutions Ltd, Unit 12A,Barrowside Business Park,Sleaty Road,Graiguecullen,Carlow,R93 X265,Ireland Company No.: 370845
I have sent this email at a time that is convenient for me. I do not expect you to respond to it outside of your usual working hours.
From: John McCormac via CPWG <cpwg@icann.org>
Date: Wednesday, 14 August 2024 at 19:35
To: mike palage.com <mike@palage.com>,
cpwg@icann.org <cpwg@icann.org>
Subject: [CPWG] Re: Potential Topic of Discussion - NTIA & Verisign Cooperative Agreement
[EXTERNAL EMAIL] Please use caution when opening attachments from unrecognised sources.
On 13/08/2024 18:21, mike palage.com via CPWG wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> While not seeking to rehash previous discussions about what is and what
> is not within the scope of ALAC, I wanted to bring to everyone’s
> attention recent communications between NTIA and Verisign involving .COM
> and the Cooperative Agreement, see https://www.ntia.gov/other-
> publication/2024/ntia-letter-verisign <https://www.ntia.gov/other-
> publication/2024/ntia-letter-verisign>
>
The .US/.COM comparison misses a greater point, Michael,
The .COM is the de facto US "country code" TLD in terms of registration
volume and it isn't fair to compare the .US with .COM in the US market
in the same way that .COM is compared with ccTLDS outside the US in
their local markets.
What has been happening since the mid-2000s in many countries with a
strong ccTLD is a shift away from .COM as the first choice TLD for
registrants. This currently has little to do with Verisign. It can be
summed up in a simple phrase: more business is local. The most common
registration pair for registrants is still .COM/.cCTLD. Brand protection
registrations are a large part of .COM registrations.
Once people start selling and trading locally on the Web, they are more
likely to use a ccTLD (if it is dominant). This is why many European
ccTLDs have a greater share of their local markets than the gTLDs. One
of the spreadsheets in the monthly HosterStats Registrars and Resellers
report shows the gTLD breakdowns by country of hoster and it would not
be difficult to compare with ccTLD counts where available.
In terms of registration volume, the .COM is not the only TLD seeing
reduced or negative net registrations. In terms of renewals, some
countries are quite good but the first year renewal rate for .COM is
quite different to that of .ORG (which has some of the characteristics
of a ccTLD). For the .COM gTLD as a whole, it is running around 50%. The
problem is that the .COM isn't simply a single global market. It is a
set of country-level markets with a smaller global market. In that
respect, the demand and renewal rates are closely linked to those
individual markets. This is why it is not unusual to see some registrars
and resellers with over 70% first renewals and others with less than 50%.
> As many may recall, as part of the .NET public comment consultation
> process last year, I advocated for the inclusion of a standard
> contractual provision that would require Verisign to participate in any
> ICANN economic studies. Sadly, ICANN and Verisign opted not to include
> that provision in the finalized .NET RA.
I remember that wonderful ICANN economic report on the new gTLDs. It had
many economic insights and explanations. It was academically impressive.
I tend to be somewhat cynical about such reports because the domain name
market is a fast moving one and it will have changed between the time
that such a report is commissioned and by the time it is delivered.
The other important point on such reports is that the domain name market
largely operates on a yearly basis. This means that The bulk of activity
in today's activity (renewals and deletions) is larger than the number
of new registrations and therefore relates more to last year's and
previous year's registration decisions. The business that registered a
domain name last year, or before that, may have disappeared long before
the domain name comes up for renewal. (There's a particular category in
web usage surveys that can track it (the rate of abandonment) as
development and updates on a website that had been previously updated
frequently cease.)
An economic report on the entire DNS market would be a major undertaking
and would be interesting. I've spent the last few weeks working on
breaking down the website hosting of all gTLD websites by webhoster and
have currently identified 93% of the gTLD webhosters (Approximately 21%
of the gTLD DNS market is off-registrar resellers.) The web hosting side
of the business is part of the DNS business but they can have some
different players that will not show up in a purely DNS-based (domain
names/registrars/resellers) approach. Some businesses exist purely in
the Cloud in that their web hosting is in the cloud and their DNS is
handled in the Cloud. They don't exist as a distinct business in terms
of DNS with theor own nameservers or as a registrar. This kind of
complexity is not unusual and may complicate matters for an economic
report. However, limiting it to domain name registrations, registrars
and resellers is more doable (the raw data for registration transactions
and registrars is in the monthly ICANN registry reports). Even with the
data, it is not a simple market to analyse and for people outside the
domain name business, it would be extremely difficult to understand.
One of the attractive aspects of .COM is its global credibility as *the*
global TLD. Price stability was a part of that because registration
costs in developing markets are important.The importance of the gTLD in
the US market probably outweighs that in terms of registration volume.
That graph in the letter makes sense in monetary terms but the TLDs
being compared have very different characteristics in terms of usage and
market. The data used is over five years old and has missed some of the
recent market trends (The Covid Bubble).
It might be a bit of an outlier but the .IE ccTLD registration cost is
around $25. In terms of the Irish hosting market, the .IE has
approximately twice the footprint of .COM. Some ccTLD registration costs
are cheaper than .COM but the difference in registration volumes in
those markets are not purely based on domain name prices. Outside the US
and the developing markets, the .COM has shifting from being a first
choice TLD for most registants.
Regards...jmcc
--
**********************************************************
John McCormac * e-mail: jmcc@hosterstats.com
MC2 * web: http://www.hosterstats.com/
22 Viewmount * Domain Registrations Statistics
Waterford * Domnomics - the business of domain names
Ireland * https://amzn.to/2OPtEIO
IE * Skype: hosterstats.com
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