[registrars] Annual Accreditation Fee for Neulevel .org?

["Ross Wm. Rader" <ross@tucows.com>]

I was just reading throught the Neulevel .org application and noticed a
real-gem in section 17.6.1 of their application
(http://www.icann.org/tlds/org/applications/neustar/03.html#c17.6.1)
entitled "Annual Maintenance Fee". Nowhere else in the application is this
fee detailed, but it is described in this passage as an annual maintenance
fee that is automatically withdrawn from a registrar's account on the annual
membership anniversary. At first I thought that this might be an obtuse way
to describe a domain registration renewal or something similar, but a close
read through this particular section indicates that all domain specific
transactions are covered off very explicitly elsewhere...so my question
remains.

Is Neulevel try to back-door a fee increase for registrars or am I missing
something? Dropping in an annual membership (?) fee would be a heinous
precedent to set with the .org redelegation process as it would quickly open
the door for similar fees in all current and forthcoming gTLDs. I don't know
about the rest of you, but I'm quite comfortable with the enormous size of
the bill that we pay to our registry suppliers each and every day. There are
any number of reasons why this is "A Really Bad Idea" (tm).

Does anyone have any background info on this that I might have missed?

Thanks,


                     -rwr




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