RE: [registrars] Interesting quote from Melbourne IT in todays papers in Australia.

["Michael D. Palage" <michael@palage.com>]

I will attempt to seek a clarification from  Doug at INTA today. I believe this is an important point of concern.

 

Will provide an update as soon as possible.

 

Mike

 

 -----Original Message-----
From: owner-registrars@dnso.org [mailto:owner-registrars@dnso.org]On Behalf Of Rob Hall
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 10:38 AM
To: registrars@dnso.org
Subject: [registrars] Interesting quote from Melbourne IT in todays papers in Australia.

In todays "The Australian", Melbourne IT chief executive officer Adrian Kloeden said,

NeuLevel won the rights to be the registry for the .biz web suffix last year.

The NeuLevel deal facilitates Melbourne IT's move into the lucrative web registry space. It also enables Melbourne IT to act as a data aggregator.

"With biz.com, we will be controlling all of the data that comes to us," he said. "People registering with .biz do so because they want to be found. It's basically the equivalent of the Yellow Pages."



I find it interesting that Melbourne IT is claiming control of all the data submitted to the .biz registry.  This causes me concern, and I hope that the Neulevel CEO clears up this with Michael ASAP.

Rob.

Here is the entire article:

Melb IT sacrifices for future of the .biz
Penny Brown
09 May 2001

MELBOURNE IT will sacrifice earnings in 2001-02 for a stake of up to 30 per cent in its joint venture NeuLevel, operator of the new web suffix .biz.

Melbourne IT yesterday agreed to pay $6 million cash for a 10 per cent stake in NeuLevel after finalising negotiations with US telco NeuStar, its joint venture partner.

It has an option to increase its interest to 30 per cent, for an estimated $12 million plus a cost of capital charge, by September 2001.

"It is likely that we will have a short-term EBIT loss," Melbourne IT chief executive officer Adrian Kloeden said.

"There will be front-end costs, such as software, hardware and marketing costs, associated with establishing the biz.com platform."
Mr Kloeden said the investment would hurt the company's EBIT in the first two years but would make money in the long term.

NeuLevel won the rights to be the registry for the .biz web suffix last year.

The NeuLevel deal facilitates Melbourne IT's move into the lucrative web registry space. It also enables Melbourne IT to act as a data aggregator.

Eventually, Melbourne IT would offer services similar to City Search's business directory, Mr Kloeden said.

"With biz.com, we will be controlling all of the data that comes to us," he said. "People registering with .biz do so because they want to be found. It's basically the equivalent of the Yellow Pages."

Melbourne IT shares fell 1c to 88c.

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