RE: [registrars] Registrar Wait Listing Proposal

["Bhavin Turakhia" <bhavin.t@directi.com>]

Hi,

Thanks for the PDF version. On a quick brush almost all seems fine except
the ridiculously high price point. Here are my comments -

. Firstly as you point out the price point is $40 - while it actually is $46
on successful registration because an additional 6 dollars would get debited
to the Registrar on registration of the name. This compared to Snapnames
pricing of $49 is just 3 dollars lesser. The entire purpose of having the
Registry cpome up with this service instead of using a private party is
wholesale pricing. However your pricing actually comes so close to the
retail pricing that it does not leave much margin.

. Infact most of us Registrars are making more money off snapnames since
snapnames offers upto $12 or more commission on each domain sold thru us,
effectively giving registrars a price point of $49 - $12 => $37 (inclusive
of the domain registration costs).

. It is obvious that the cost to snapnames per domain in the current model
is FAR larger in terms of INFRASTRUCTURE, SOFTWARE and management since they
have to for each domain PING the registry multiple times. The Verisign
Registry does not have to put in huge infreastructure since they would be
directly reregistering the name on expiry

. It is also OBVIOUS that Verisign registry would have a 100% success rate
as compared to snapnames. In light of this however you have justified an
extra charge to Registrars which is oppostie of what should happen. The
actual statement in your document should have been - "Since our costs are
lower than SNAPNAMES, and our success rate is HIGHER than SNAPNAMES, we can
afford to charge you much lower than what SNAPNAMES charges you, and
therefore the pricepoint to registrars would be $xx (closer to $6 than to
$49). This would allow REGISTRARS to make more margins than they are making
today.

. Your price model currently
	- increases cost to Regisrars
	- decreases margins of Registrars
	- increases margins of Verisign
I doubt that is what the spirit of this proposal was meant to do

. It is funny that it would actually cost me LESSER than $40 per domain (if
i was doing this on the scale of snapnames) to still ping the Registry
continuously for each name. And therefore this new solution proposaed is
actually a higher cost solution for me

. it is funny that I for one would than rather continue with the current
snapnames model since they bring in higher margins per domain name (cost to
registrar - $37).

. Quoting your statements -

"As further detailed in the market rationale section below, a service
similar but inferior to
WLS currently retails for $49. The rate of uptake on the service by
registrars and
subscribers is increasing even at this current retail price."

*** Since when did Verisign REGISTRY start selling at RETAIL prices. I
believe at the time when Domain Names were retailing at around $70 the price
set to Registrars by the Registry was $6. Taking that into consideration if
WLS like subscriptions are retailing at $49 ($37 to Registrars), the
pricepoint by Verisign Registry should not be equal to or greater than that
of the Retail price but should actually be far lesser

"VeriSign GRS must recoup costs associated with securing and maintaining
partners and
licenses to offer WLS."

*** Is SnapNames considered it a viable model with all their OVERHEADS at a
$37 (inclucive of the Registration fee) pricepoint to Registrars I am sure
Verisign with low network and infrastructure overheads (for not having to
ping the registry continously) hads lower costs

"VeriSign GRS envisions making a reasonable profit on providing the service"

*** and what about us Registrars??

Best Regards
Bhavin Turakhia
CEO
Directi
----------------------------
Tel: 91-22-6370256 (4 lines)
Fax: 91-22-6370255
http://www.directi.com
----------------------------

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-registrars@dnso.org [mailto:owner-registrars@dnso.org]On
> Behalf Of Rick H Wesson
> Sent: Monday, December 31, 2001 1:44 AM
> To: Registrars List
> Cc: Gomes, Chuck
> Subject: Re: [registrars] Registrar Wait Listing Proposal
>
>
>
> all:
>
>
> It seems just about everyone had a problem with the M$ word doc, attached
> is a PDF file for your review.
>
> In the future I'll request that a PDF and Text version be available for
> all proposals or formal communications that can't fit in the body of a
> email.
>
> again, sorry for the inconvience.
>
>
> -rick
>
> On Sun, 30 Dec 2001, Rick H Wesson wrote:
>
> >
> > Registrars:
> >
> > Please review the attached proposal as a replacement for the "overflow
> > pools" some times referred to as the "Batch Delete Process."
> >
> > Chuck needs comments back to him by the Jan 18th. You may write
> > him directly.
> >
> > I would also like this constituency to develop a consensus on this
> > proposal and that we have a statement to VGRS by Jan 18th. We have
> > scheduled a constituency call this month, I will see that this is on the
> > agenda for that call.
> >
> > regards,
> >
> > -rick
> >
> >
>