[registrars] Policy versus Supplier/Customer relationship

[Bruce Tonkin <Bruce.Tonkin@melbourneit.com.au>]

Hello All,

Michael Palage has raised some good points about how registry's could
respond to 
have new business practices imposed on them via the ICANN Policy process.

I agree with Michael, that where possible we should work with registries to
reach 
a mutually agreeable outcome.

We also need to be careful that we use the ICANN policy process primarily to
give improved outcomes to registrants.  The redemption grace period is an
example of such an action.
I believe that transfers also fits into this category as users should be
able to move between suppliers without being impeded by their current
supplier.

Areas of improvement that primarily benefit registrars should be treated as
part of a normal supplier/customer relationship.  The issue of payment terms
during the grace period I would consider to be in this category.  If enough
registrars lobby the supplier than some changes may occur, but there would
also need to be a benefit to the registry as well.  Unfortunately the
competition anticipated by .biz and .info has still not had a significant
impact yet, as most registrars are not in a business position to only supply
.biz and .info if they don't get good commercial terms with Verisign.  The
reality is that consumers still demand ".com" names when choosing a domain
name.

As a registrar constituency we can seek to reach internal consensus on what
outcomes we seek, and we can then try in the first instance to get changes
from the registries, and if this fails we can consider the ICANN policy
development process.  At the same time as individual registrars we also have
the right to raise issues directly with registries, or to initiate the
policy development process directly.

As Mike points out, we should not use the full policy development process
lightly, as this will only increase costs of both ICANN and the registry
operators.

Likewise, when groups seek improvements in processes such as WHOIS via the
policy development process, it is likely that cost will fall onto registrars
as well.  There are many policy makers that do not consider the cost of
implementing any given policy.

Regards,
Bruce Tonkin