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

[Larry Erlich <erlich@domainregistry.com>]

Rob Hall wrote:
> 
> 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."

This is what you get with a thick registry.
 
We are not registrars, just order takers. 
The gatekeeper is Neulevel. If the quote in the article is correct, 
Neulevel basically believes they own the customer.  

I am sure that as part of the registry-registrar agreement, 
we will have to indemnify  Neulevel against any customer lawsuits, 
and since they will be retaining the data, they will most certainly 
get sued at some point. 

The registrar ("order taker") will have to indemnify them
for all costs in defending any lawsuits (in addition to the 
registrar's own costs in defending the same suit.) 
With a thin registry (as with NSI) we still have to indemnify, 
but there is less of a chance of a lawsuit since they don't retain
any data or have any relationship with the
customer registering the name. 

But I'm not an attorney. Michael(s), your opinion?

Larry Erlich

http://www.DomainRegistry.com

> 
> 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.
> 
> --
> Rob Hall                                voice  (613) 768-5100
> President                                  fax  (613) 820-0777
> Momentous.ca Corp.
> rob@momentous.ca                      www.momentous.ca
> 
> iti,s

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