JP wrote:
Larry:
That is a business choice that they have made. If their costs go up they need to reevaluate that choice. That is not the same as a small registrar having to pay quad the fees.
Can you explain this to Me, because I see it exactly the other way arround.
I have explained it. We see it differently. There is no reason to ever guarantee customers that a variable cost won't change unless you have a contract with someone else stating that the variable cost won't change. Then I guess it would be reasonable to guarantee the variable cost. This isn't the case with ICANN fees and I thought there were ways for even Verisign to increase the $6 rate. We don't take money in advance from customers so this isn't an issue for us and additionally we don't sell domains for small amounts over cost. I note from your web page that you offer "1000 domain packs" for $6.99. So what I think is going on here is that you have sold packs that obviously have unused domain registrations. You may have sold tens or hundreds of these. Or you may have sold hundreds of domain packs of lesser quantities like 250 for $7.99. Your registration agreement is ambiguous as to whether you can pass the fees along to customers. It says that you can change or add fees at any time but I don't know if that is for new packs or legacy packs. In any case, good news and bad news. The good news is that I think you and others have a good case to have a certain amount packs that you sold grandfathered if there could be a reasonable way to show that you had sold the packs with the expectation that the price wouldn't change. You would have to proove that. I could argue that either way. But in the end ICANN should probably grandfather some past sales. The bad news is that it certainly makes selling future packs less attractive if you have to say something like "by the way we are selling you domain packs at $7.25 but if our cost go up you won't be able to register as many names." But you should be able to find a creative way to bury this somewhere. (Probably more advice than you want to hear on a public list.)
The only way that the increase in transaction fees will kill a large registrar is if they have contracts with customers that specify their cost will always be, say $6.50 (or whatever).
I can not speak for other registrars, but it will badly hurt us.
Another example of a registrar that might need to eat the fee might be Godaddy. The site advertises $7.95 and $8.95 for transfers/new registrations. If a per domain fee of .25 is added, they can't maintain those prices and those magic numbers.
Please, visit our website and check our prices.
I think that if a registrar makes a choice to sell domains so close to the cost, then take a risk if fees are increased. That is a risk of the business model they have chosen. It is not the same as, once again, a small registrar being hit with an extra $19,000.
Again how come it is unfair only one way. There is an increase on the variable fee, and it is substantial, as Kurt said yesterday, MOST of the funds come from the increase in the PER TRANSACTION fee.
What you are advocating for is that ALL the funding should come from a per transaction.
I am not advocating that all of the funding come per a per transaction. I am advocating: 1) See if DOC really needs all these things done on the schedule that is laid out in the MOU that was "just signed" 2) Analyze and reduce expenses possibly by outsourcing. 3) Find some reasonable combination of fixed and variable fees. In the end I don't think it's unreasonable that costs be assigned on both a per registrant and per registration and per registrar basis. Actually that's a new idea. Find some way to attach a cost to a "registrant" since 1 registrant with 100,000 names is certainly less work for everyone than 100,000 registrants with 1 name each.
I not only think it is unfair, I can tell you it will completely cripple our business, and our ability to provide a large number of customers with registrations at an affordable price, customers, that because of the increase might not be able to pay for those registrations...
I still don't see that. If your costs go up on a per transaction basis and your competitors costs go up how will that cripple you? Can you give an exact example of some of these customers that would stop registering names if the variable cost increased?
Our "choice" of model has always been to provide more for less, and it proved successful. I do not think your idea of killing our model in favor of smaller, "boutique" , "specialty" or even non registering registrars is fair; As for the registrars that have a VIABLE, REAL, registration business going on, there is relief from the fee.
As I mentioned I think it would be reasonable, even though it wouldn't benefit us, to have any legacy sales excluded if there is a way to do that. Larry Erlich ----------------------------------------------------------------- Larry Erlich - DomainRegistry.com, Inc. 215-244-6700 - FAX:215-244-6605 - Reply: erlich@DomainRegistry.com -----------------------------------------------------------------
Regards,
JP
The bottom line is that there is an large overall increase in fees for registrars as a whole, and nobody (big or small) is happy with the increase they have to pay individually.
Regards, Bruce
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Larry Erlich - DomainRegistry.com, Inc. 215-244-6700 - FAX:215-244-6605 - Reply: erlich@DomainRegistry.com -----------------------------------------------------------------