RE: Long term registrations - Was: RE: [ga] Fwd: LACTLD comments on Zone Transfers

[Steven Heath <Steven.Heath@Optimation.co.nz>]

> On Fri, 20 Sep 2002, Steven Heath wrote:
> 
> > How would you collect payments/renewals?

On Friday, 20 September 2002 11:00 a.m., Karl Auerbach wrote:

> For some reason folks seem to presume that we need a system 
> in which names are periodically renewed.

<info about payment approach removed>

I agree that many different ways exist to charge for service. I also am
aware of ccTLD's that charge a 'one time fee' approach. 

However, most don't. .ca (CIRA) and .nz (InternetNZ) are perfect example's
of ccTLD's that have gone from a no fee basis (both used volunteer time of
University staff and systems) to a 'on going fee'. 

If as per the original comment of Jonathan Weinberg ICANN (or some other
body with the same or greater power) were to use a zone file to 'replace' an
incumbent ccTLD Manager then they would face major issues, one of the
biggest for the current system is income collection. If this new body wished
not to charge for further service this would not eliminate the bigger issue
of how to identify the registrant.

But back to the comments about payments. Back in the early late 80's and
early 90's I recall reading about the cost of recording usage and then
collection costs for long distance calls was a huge amount of the actual
cost of long distance calls. One could say that the equivalent of per minute
billing in the name space is charging for changes to the registry and
compared to the 'all you can eat for a year' approach most ccTLD's have now.

Registries do have a high fixed cost, while a one time fee can set to
recover this fee over the life of the name (or more exact that registrants
usage of that name). The issue is how do you determine a life of a name?

Do we set it at 10 years?
Do we set it at 50 years?
Do we set it at 2 years?

The expected life of the name is one of the major inputs to determine the 1
time fee the other of course is the operational costs.

Now, Karl comments on a OTF of $25 and "particularly if updates were paid
for on a per-occurrence fee schedule.". 

My opinion is any fee that is based on the registrant, or their agent, being
charged to update details would result in lower quality of data compared to
the a fee based on unlimited changes being allowed. Lower quality is not a
good thing.

Steven Heath
.nz news & views
http://radio.weblogs.com/0110729/
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