[ga] European ccTLDs refuse to pay ICANN fee?

[Alexander Svensson <alexander@svensson.de>]

Dear all,

this is my rough translation of a statement originally in
German concerning the ccTLDs position on the ICANN fee.
(You can find the German original at www.icannchannel.de,
'Allgemeines Forum'). I haven't seen anything about in the
media yet, so I wondered if you all know about it.

To me, this doesn't just look like it's about money; the
European registries know that they will have to contribute
to ICANN. It seems they are unsatisfied with how ICANN and
especially DNSO work. Does anyone have more information from
the Trondheim meeting?

Best regards,
/// Alexander

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
European domain registries oppose ICANN demands for payment of fees

The mainly European (ccTLD) domain registries forming the organisation
CENTR have on a meeting in Trondheim, Norway, rejected demands from
ICANN, the international management body for domain names and Internet
addresses, for payment of fees in the manner aimed at by ICANN. All
national registries are supposed to procure a total of 35 percent
of ICANN's budget for the financial year 1999/2000 amounting to
$1.5 millions and have received 'invoices' in April. The amounts are
calculated according to the number of registered domain names in
each country. As largest domain zone, Germany alone was supposed to
remit nearly $500,000. CENTR criticizes that there is no legal basis
for these invoices. ICANN's activities are welcomed and a contribution
to its financing is generally accepted. Yet without a skeleton
contract between registries and ICANN the organization cannot just
ask for fees which do not correspond to any services in the period of
time in question. Additionally, it is not appropriate to calculate the
claims according to the number of domains as the service provided by
ICANN to the individual registries does not in any way depend on the
amount of domains, but rather is generally identical for all the
registries.

"We are thoroughly willing to pay our share of ICANN's financing costs.
But we see this year's payment as a initial start financing, not as a
fee that corresponds to a precise service form ICANN", says Carsten
Schiefner from the board of DENIC eG, who manage the German domain names.
"ICANN cannot decide arbitrarily on the contribution which the individual
registries have to pay. In addition, it has to be clarified which services
ICANN will take on in the future and how the registries' influencing
opportunities are turning out."

The board of DENIC is going to confer on the course of action, especially
concerning the amount of the payment to ICANN in the next couple of days.

DENIC --> www.denic.de
CENTR --> www.centr.org
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