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:This is both a weak argument to support prepayment justification
> 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.
True that no "Registrar" under this scheam would have any particularIn 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.
Yes all the benifit is for the registry or the registrar, not the coustomer.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.
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
Regards,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