RE: Re[2]: [ga] charging for renewals after expiry

[Jefsey Morfin <jefsey@wanadoo.fr>]

Dear Paul,
I am not excited about this ICANN role of creating the Registrars industry 
to fake competition instead of creating real competition among TLD 
Registries in respecting commerce and Internet rules (RFC 920) and IANA 
mission. But now you Registrars are here and you have to survive and we 
have to survive [with] you.

What I do object to your position is this:
- the Registrars consistuency has not come with an united position on the 
way to solve your problems so we the Registrants may understand the rules 
of your game.
- you are far too dependent from VeriSign solutions while some competition 
to VeriSIgn Registries develops. This makes you too economically weak - you 
shows it - for us to feel at ease.
- you have not  proposed common adapted tools for the markets (plural) you 
interface. This is true too for NetSol as a Registrar.

As a Registrant I have been transferred from Registrars Inc. to NetSol 
after their purchase of Registrars Inc. The information I received (?) or 
did not receive as a large DN holder and a reseller is not adapted to what 
I do and the way I worked with Registrars. I understand NetSol problem's in 
interfacing with different types of operations. But I also observe they 
mostly spend their mails and phone in "we thank you for your 
patience/someone is going to respond" and delays. This makes us very 
uncertain about their rules - I have 300 overdue DNs because I do not know 
how to renew them and pay (we also are used to test their new database 
system). I got these names rerouted to a Registrars Inc. add page during 3 
days by mistake and another customer got 13,000. It was nigthmare and big, 
big money loss.

I feel this is a general need. We suffer the lack of a Registrant 
constituency with Individual, Bulk, Reseller, Corporate working groups. 
When I am proposed nice looking HTML pages with 20 DNs to click per page to 
manage bulk renewals or changes for 2000 DNs, there is a problem. I need 
plain ASCII reports and mail registrations as I had with NSI and 
Registrars. IMHO the procedures and protocols should be discussed and 
agreed upon between Registrars and Registrants constituencies.

May I suggest something: the gTLD have created a mailing list now quite 
active. Why the Registrars would not do the same - may be at the initiative 
of VRSN (Chuck?). We could discuss these kind of things, find patches, work 
out solutions, save and make money. I suppose ccTLDs could also help and 
benefit from this. We have to accept that more and more Registrars will 
interface many different Registries. Since they are here, they will be the 
core of the DN sales. So the protocols and procedures must come from them 
and they must interface their market to know it. Otherwise it is cacophony, 
instability, money loss.

I would suggest another response to your problem fo renewal. You permit 
people to register indefinitly and to pay yearly. So you know they reniew. 
You make that service paid an extra 50 cent per DN and present these DNs as 
SafeDNs with a permanant holdership insurance included - and you drop the 
other DNs which are not renewed (the Registrant has the choice). Obviously 
the day the people pay the renewal date is the inital registration 
birthday. You just make them to pay an extra .50 the day they renew for 
them not to make it too often.

The Registrars which permits Registrants to transfer anytime for .50 extra 
or free over a certain number of DNs, will for sure soon get the patronage 
of every bulk Registrants - or keep them. Our problem is not to renew and 
pay, our problem is we have a very small structure trying to keep an eye on 
endangered precious yet cheap entries lists by machines with no real 
support. I have 2000 DNs renewing at any date and I want for ever because 
they are real sites in operations. The $.50 would warranty you and me. You 
would just send me a monthly report with the status of every DNs with an 
ASCII copy I can feed into my programs, the money amount to transfer and a 
printed reminder (for my customers and banker) that keeping these domain 
names renewed is your responsbility and that your are inslured by the 
LLoyds or any oher international respected Insurrance company. Please 
consider you curstomers, not only the cybersquatters.

My two eurocents.
Jefsey

On 20:42 05/02/02, Paul Stahura said:
>There are multiple reasons we state in our contract that
>we charge $20 per name to "re-activate" an expired domain,
>but the main reason is:
>
>Even though eNom is one of the largest net gaining registrars
>(in terms of number of domains) in recent months, we delete about
>1,000 names per day.  This costs us $6x1000x45days=$270K per month
>in cash that is tied up for the period.  If we were not compensated
>for that, then registrants would have no chance to renew
>an expired name because we would delete them about 2 days
>after expiration, and they would then have to go to the guy
>who re-registered their deleted name and pay that guy, or re-register
>themselves it if it was still in the pool.  About 100 names "re-activated"
>per month at $20 each pays for this carrying cost.  And
>we probably do not "re-activate" that many names each month, so we are
>actually losing money on it, so we could either raise the price or
>cancel the program and delete all names on day 1 after expiration.
>We choose to charge for it.  Tucows, who I understand, does not
>charge for this service probably makes up for the cost of performing
>the service by charging their registrants in other ways, possibly by
>charging more for the actual registration.
>We choose to charge a fee to those who
>do not renew before deletion and not penalize those who do
>renew their names on-time.
>
>Also, It provides an incentive for registrants to renew their names
>on-time, before they expire.
>We make exceptions in charging this "re-activate"  fee in special cases too.
>
>Paul
>eNom, Inc.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: admin@consumer.net [mailto:admin@consumer.net]
> > Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 9:33 PM
> > To: 'Don Brown'
> > Cc: ga@dnso.org
> > Subject: RE: Re[2]: [ga] charging for renewals after expiry
> >
> >
> > > What's the beef?  My statements were on the side of the consumer.
> >
> > The beef is that everybody sits on these lists, regardless of their
> > position, and spouts out the same excuses not to do anything.  The
> > Registry is separate, "market forces" will fix the problem, there is a
> > committee looking at that, ICANN doesn't look at that issue ....
> >
> > and now they say they searched the world and could only find
> > Crispin as
> > the ICANN technical manager.  Is anyone going to seriously
> > argue that is
> > nothing more than a payoff for repeating all the excuses
> > above over and
> > over and over until people actually think they are legitimate excuses?
> >
> > Russ Smith
> >
> > --
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> >
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