[registrars] Unedited Minutes from GNR Teleconference

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

Hello All:

Listed below is a summary of the discussion that tooks place between
representatives of the Registrar Constituency and GNR. If there are any
edits from the participants please let me know.

Best regards,

Mike

Call Friday, January 31, 2003. Noon EST


GNR Representatives:
Francis Coleman
Chuck Mancini

Registrar Attendees:
Michael D. Palage
Elana Broitman
Rob Hall
Rick Wesson
(may be others by they did not ask questions)


Francis Coleman: Call is scheduled for 45 min. Theme of call is business
oriented (not policy, legal, technical) growing .name. How do we take
advantage of consumer market. Thanks participants for attending call and
sharing there concerns which they hope GNR will be able to address.

Chuck Mancini: Joined CEO of GNR in Sept. The volume of registrations in
.name have not met expectations. Well below .biz and .info levels.
References to State of the Domain and ICANN Watch articles. GNR believes
that the lack of success in .name adoption can be remedied.

GNR believes that Registrars have not tapped the consumer market. GNR is
looking to reach consumer market through alternate distribution channels.
Registrars lack marketing resources to drive consumer traffic. GNR wants to
drive enterprise entities.  GNR wants large distribution enterprises with
established consumer relationships.

Although Yahoo currently uses an ICANN registrar to drive domain
registrations, it does not believe that registrars are properly situated to
capitalize on consumer market.

"fulfillment engine" designed for consumers. This "fulfillment engine" will
be open to all ICANN accredited registrars.

Predecessor NamePlanet. over one and a half million personalized email.

Creativity in the marketplace.

(1) go to market
(2) consumer oriented interface
(3) test various price point
(4) test various marketing approaches

The knowledge of PersonalNames will be shared with the entire registrar
community.



Question from Elana Broitman:

Services and pricing given to PersonalNames versus other registrars.

Response by Chuck:

GNR is reducing price by about 47%. GNR price for a dual registration 13.25
to 7, effective Feb 15. Price drop in response to a number of concerns
raised by registrars. Consumer market requires a lower price than a business
user. Consumer's want a lower price point. PersonalNames will engage in a
variety of pricing levels to consumers.

Follow-up by Elana Broitman:

PersonalNames is getting an advantage of competitive pricing by two weeks.
Who will be running .


Response by Chuck:

Does not know where PersonalNames pricing will be, but that it will be
commercially reasonable level. GNR is also introducing  some new promotional
terms available to all registrars.

Response by Fran:

All Registrars will receiving equal payment terms. There has been no time
advantage to PersonalNames. Management of PersonalNames. Hakom will be
heading PersonalNames.


Question by Rob Hall:

.Name fairly to have been aggressive in .name marketing, will that change.
Is there a purposed shut down of the PersonalNames after marketing is
complete. Rob Hall is concerned about competition with PersonalNames with
certain enterprise channels.


Response by Chuck:

Registrars have been provided a one year window of opportunity. Average
registrations of only 5,000 a month are totally unacceptable from a business
stand point.  There would have to be a growth by a factor of 10 before
considering any of Rob Hall's issues of phasing out the registrar. GNR
cannot foresee when that date may be.


Follow-up by Rob:

You are making changes based on registrar feedback. Why not give registrars
a chance to capitalize before rolling out PersonalNames. What incentive is
there for registrars to continue to support .name. Rob believes that Feb
promotion is giving a benefit to PersonalNames. What is preventing GNR from
registrar at a lose.


Response by Chuck:

GNR is a private company, will not discuss P&L because it is a private
company. But PersonalNames will be run as a commercial entity. Chuck is not
interested in running registrar as a loss.


Question by Palage:

(1) Concerns about advertising references on registrar website concerning
relationship with registry;
(2) Sharing data with other registrars with regard to actual registration,
so that we can see when GNR gets to the 10 factor threshold when it would
consider taking steps to shut down registrar.
(3) Provide registration data on second and third level domain names.


Response by Chuck/Fran:

(1) Will remove references to registry on registrar website.
(2) Will consider sharing registration data in connection with results of
marketing campaigns.



Question by Rick Wesson:

Ability to get access to third level zone files; restatement of Palage
question.


Response by Chuck:

Taking this question under advisement.




GNR Statement

January 30, 2003
Dear .NAME Registrar:

The Global Name Registry Ltd operates the dot name registry. We has received
some inquiries regarding the upcoming launch of Personal Names Limited, a
registrar that is wholly-owned by our parent company GNR Limited.  Personal
Names Limited was accredited by ICANN on  23 December 2002.  This note is
intended to provide the rationale behind the launch of the new registrar.

The Board of GNR Limited has been disappointed with the results posted by
Global Name Registry.  In the 9 month period ended 30 September 2002, Global
Name Registry sold only 85,633 registrations.  NAME registrations now trail
other new gTLDs by a dramatic amount.  On the same date BIZ enjoyed 768,857
registrations and INFO enjoyed 951,018 registrations. [State of the Domain
report Q3 2002]

Of course, Global Name Registry does not sell directly to the public.  It
sells to registrars, who resell the service the public.  The registrar
community has simply not delivered NAME sales the way that they have
delivered, and continue to deliver, COM, NET, ORG, BIZ, INFO and US sales.

Why?

We believe NAME is not selling at the same levels as the other gTLDs for the
following reasons:

1.      Most registrars sell domain names to businesses and organizations,
with a particular focus on small to medium enterprises.  The NAME product is
targeted at consumers.  Many registrars do not know how to communicate with
or sell to consumers, and have little consumer traffic to their web sites.

2.      The primary feature of interest to consumers is the personalized
email capability offered by the NAME product, which guarantees consumers
their last names, and provides them with name portability and permanence.
Many registrars have not tried to sell these features, instead focusing on
the domain name aspects of the product, which are of less interest to the
average consumer.

3.      The NAME product is somewhat more complex than other gTLDs, with
three levels instead of two.  Many registrars have not designed simple, easy
to use registration and modification tools for the consumer.

4.      Until recently, the NAME product cost considerably more on a bundled
basis (personalized email plus personalized domain name) than other domain
names.  Global Name Registry charged registrars $13.25 for a one year
registration bundle, while other registries charge approximately $6.00 for a
one year domain name registration.  Responding to registrar encouragement,
Global Name Registry announced on 14 January 2003 that it would be reducing
its bundled one-year registration price to $7.00 effective 15 February 2003.

Our research suggests that the market for personalized consumer email is
enormous.  There are 200 million online users in North America, and 600
million worldwide.  The primary application used by the vast majority of
these individuals is email.  A significant percentage of those users do not
enjoy email addresses that are easy to remember.  But the registrar
community has not even captured 2/100ths of 1% of the global market
opportunity.

At GNR, we have come to the conclusion that we do not have a sustainable
business model if we continue to rely on the current approach to NAME.   We
need, but are not getting, aggressive, creative techniques for reaching the
consumer, for promoting personalized-portable-permanent email, or for
creating registration engines that are consumer friendly.  In fact, few
registrars even give NAME placement on their home pages.

So we have decided to create a registrar that is tailored  to the NAME
space, and focused on developing the kind of marketing program designed to
appeal to individual consumers. Our new registrar, Personal Names Limited,
will become a development site for testing new strategies and tools for
marketing NAME.  Our intent is to share the best practices that we develop
with interested registrars.  Our hope is that Personal Names Limited becomes
a model for the industry to follow.  It is in the best interest of Global
Name Registry for EVERY registrar that is accredited to sell NAME services
to enjoy success.

Global Names Registry understands the importance of our obligations as an
ICANN -accredited registry, including our obligation to provide equal access
for all registrars, and to maintain separation from Personal Names Limited.
We intend to uphold these obligations.

We hope this clarifies the questions surrounding the registrar launch.  If
you have any additional questions, please feel free to address them to me or
Francis Coleman, our VP Law & Policy and General Counsel, during a
conference call at 12:00 Noon ET tomorrow - Friday, January 3. The
conference call number for those in the US is 1-334-323-6203, and for those
outside the US it is +44-207-162-0125. The password is "Chuck Mancini".  For
best results, you may wish to call in 7 or 8 minutes before Noon.

Very truly yours,

R. Charles Mancini

CEO - GNR Limited