At 09:27 PM 5/26/2004, Larry Erlich wrote:

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.

Dear Larry:

Ahaa, you got me thinking. At PSI-Japan, we take some multi-year registrations. But we pay the registry in real time. That also means that we pay the existing ICANN "transaction fee" in real time -- no down road surprises:-)

There may be a few registrars who have flown in the face of the Code of Conduct recommendation that registrars who book multi year registrations should *register* the domains for the period promised.

For example, Registrar X takes a registration from registrant Y for ten years. But X only pays RegistrY for one year and uses the difference to build cash flow. X may have taken the ten year registration with a small markup. X may even have accepted less than ten times the "transaction charge" from the RegistrY, gaming the system in the expectation of a reduction of prices from the RegistrY.

I guess they're up a brown creek without a paddle;-} So let it be.

Let's have a small fixed fee and pay the necessary ICANN transaction fee -- after we send the ICANN budget to the gym to take off the fat;-}

Let's hear that motion for us to vote on:-)

Regards, BobC