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[Comment-Dnso] Re: Boycott Register.com to:Re: Register.com as Testbed & T&C's (Long)



All,

  Of course, both William and Kent left out the most important parts of
the original post on this thread, which I will re-add here again for
purposes of accuracy and clarity.
To Wit from original Thread post:

 I changed the subject line here for many reasons.

1.) The selection of Register.com was not conducted in accordance
     with the requirements of the White Paper by the ICANN Interim Board.
     Hence making them questionable at best.

2.) Their required payment method is by credit Card.  This is not very
      indicative of good competition and is putting their potential customers
      in a potentially hazardous position with this organization having
      that potential credit card number which can and has led to credit
      card fraud use.

3.) Also in relation to using a credit card, a potential customer is succeeding
      without choice, a great deal of privacy an is offered no other choice of
      payment method.

4.) Prepayment before registration - This is automatically making the assumption
      that any potential customer is not to be trusted.  This is both insulting
     and not indicative to our existing economic practice in business today.

5.) The registration agreement is very restrictive in it's requirements as it
     must be under the ICANN contract.  As such, it puts anyone that registers
     a domain name with Register.com at the WHIP or immediate removal
     without judicial recourse of review.

  Hence for these basic reasons amongst others that I did not mention,
we [INEGroup] recommends boycotting Register.com for the purposes
of registering a domain name.  Further we find that NSI is still a far
better alternative as a result of these reasons (See above).

========== End of re-add ============

  Now let's see if we can disect the rest of Kents diatribe here....
(See below Kents comments)
 
 

Kent Crispin wrote:

On Tue, Jun 08, 1999 at 12:03:06AM +0000, William X. Walsh wrote:
> NSI benefits from the prepay rule, because the vast majority of
> registrations are processed by third parties(ISPs) on behalf of their
> customers, and they are not about to tie up their capital in $70
> registration fees paid in advance.

There are two NSI's -- the registrar, and the registry,and, given
that they are properly separated (BIG assumption), there is no
competitive advantage one way or another for the prepayment rule.

  This is both a weak argument to support prepayment justification
and on it's face is invalid in that NSI owns the registry service
and it's components.
 

In general, as long as the rules are applied uniformly, they are
neutral as far as competition is concerned.  The rules might have a
global effect on *all* registrars -- the prepayment rule might
slightly diminish the total number of domains registered, for
example -- but it wouldn't give one registrar a significant
advantage over another.

  True that no "Registrar" under this scheam would have any particular
advantage.  They would also have not opertunity to provide for real
competition in that there is only a choice in where an individual or
organization can register a domain name, yet does not provide
competition as there is not a multiple registry model, or even really
one in existance that provides for where and under what conditions
that information for a domain may be provisioned.  Hence we see
a typical "Smoke and Mirrors" game here being perpitrated on the
public through this scheam.
 

A prepayment rule simplifies matters for the registry, of course,
but the NSI registry is a regulated monopoly, and if there are cost
savings as a result, those should be folded back into lower rates
charged to the registrars.

  Yes all the benifit is for the registry or the registrar, not the coustomer.
Hence how is this "For the little guy", which Esther is so found of falsely
espousing?  Again this shows the weakness on the economic side for
the registrant/customer.  Kinda one sided, eh?

Kent Crispin wrote:

On Tue, Jun 08, 1999 at 12:03:06AM +0000, William X. Walsh wrote:
> NSI benefits from the prepay rule, because the vast majority of
> registrations are processed by third parties(ISPs) on behalf of their
> customers, and they are not about to tie up their capital in $70
> registration fees paid in advance.

There are two NSI's -- the registrar, and the registry,and, given
that they are properly separated (BIG assumption), there is no
competitive advantage one way or another for the prepayment rule.

In general, as long as the rules are applied uniformly, they are
neutral as far as competition is concerned.  The rules might have a
global effect on *all* registrars -- the prepayment rule might
slightly diminish the total number of domains registered, for
example -- but it wouldn't give one registrar a significant
advantage over another.

A prepayment rule simplifies matters for the registry, of course,
but the NSI registry is a regulated monopoly, and if there are cost
savings as a result, those should be folded back into lower rates
charged to the registrars.

In fact, of course, the rules are not totally neutral.  For example,
they clearly discriminate against very small registrars, through the
size of the application fee, and the requirement that the registrar
run a whois service, with associated requirements of 24x7 online
service.  (Nominet registrars have no such requirements, and the
system works fine.)

However, the size requirements for registrars are a direct result of
the NSI "thick registrar" model for their shared registry system --
ICANN (and most others, actually) assumed a "thin registrar" model,
where the registry maintained the whois database.  Under a "thin
registrar" model, registrars could operate over a phone line.

> NSI knows the millions of dollars the ISPs generate in registration
> revenue for them, and in this seemingly innocuous rule, they have made
> sure those ISPs will continue to use their registrar over all others.

ISPs will either become registrars themselves (so they can pay only
$9 to register a name) or they will go to the least expensive
registrar.  There is no reason whatsoever to remain loyal to NSI.
In fact, it is the ISPs who are *most* likely to jump ship -- by
their nature they will prefer the registrars with the fewest frills,
so they can achieve economies of scale...

--
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain

 

In fact, of course, the rules are not totally neutral.  For example,
they clearly discriminate against very small registrars, through the
size of the application fee, and the requirement that the registrar
run a whois service, with associated requirements of 24x7 online
service.  (Nominet registrars have no such requirements, and the
system works fine.)

However, the size requirements for registrars are a direct result of
the NSI "thick registrar" model for their shared registry system --
ICANN (and most others, actually) assumed a "thin registrar" model,
where the registry maintained the whois database.  Under a "thin
registrar" model, registrars could operate over a phone line.

> NSI knows the millions of dollars the ISPs generate in registration
> revenue for them, and in this seemingly innocuous rule, they have made
> sure those ISPs will continue to use their registrar over all others.

ISPs will either become registrars themselves (so they can pay only
$9 to register a name) or they will go to the least expensive
registrar.  There is no reason whatsoever to remain loyal to NSI.
In fact, it is the ISPs who are *most* likely to jump ship -- by
their nature they will prefer the registrars with the fewest frills,
so they can achieve economies of scale...

--
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain

Regards,
--
Jeffrey A. Williams
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
Contact Number:  972-447-1894
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208