[discuss] Re: Register.com and the Testbed charges effect

[william@dso.net (William X. Walsh)]

On Tue, 8 Jun 1999 09:43:03 +0100, Ivan Pope <ivan@NETNAMES.COM>
wrote:

>Here's a quick and very interesting effect from Register.com introducing
>charges via the Testbed for any journalists out there:
>
>Register.com has always made a lot of its huge number of registrations. On
>their site they claim 745,900
>Domainwatch (http://www.domainwatch.com) has them at 549,593 and in the No.1
>slot globally (You'll need a subscription to see all the data I'm about to
>use).
>
>Domainwatch has them adding 35,057 names to their DNS over the last seven
>days. And 109,147 over the last 30 days. Which averages between 5,000 and
>6,000 per day.
>Yesterday Domainwatch has Register.com adding 47 names to their DNS.
>Register.com have disappeared totally from the 'Top Gainers' chart at
>Domainwatch. They are now in at No.3 in the 'Top Losses' chart with a loss
>of 43 names from their DNS.

This really did get me thinking.  Had NSI not forced a prepayment
requirement here, Register.com presumably would have been able to
register about the same number as always.  Now, again, presuming that
the number of registrations that end up being removed later for
non-payment is on par with NSI's overall average of 30% roughly, that
would of placed Register.com at 3500 paid registrations in its first
day of business as a registrar (using the low end 5000 figure quoted
above).  That would of equated to ~$200,000 in revenue (after
deducting NSI's fees).  

This would of perhaps been a pretty good dent in NSI's registrar
business.  

I'd bet those 5000 registrations went to other free registration sites
where there are no prepay requirements, since they have no formal
registrar arrangement.

I'd say this is a pretty clear determination of the effects NSI's
prepayment requirement is going to have on its new and future
prospective registrars.



--
William X. Walsh
General Manager, DSo Internet Services
Email: william@dso.net  Fax:(209) 671-7934

The Law is not your mommy or daddy to go crying
to every time you have something to whimper about.