[Comment-Dnso] Re: Registry Pre-payment?

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Mark and all,

  Mark hit the nail on the head with this brief background on why pre-payment
is not very economically viable either for the registrant or the registrar
in the mid to long term.  Of course we have been over these arguments
and discussions before...  The argument in support of pre-payment
is to reduce "Cybersquating" and "Domain Name hoarding", which of course
doesn't hold up under scrutiny.  Pre-payment only has a minimal effect here.
In fact in some cases, well financed "Cybersquaters" and "Domain Name
Horders" facing a Pre-Payment situation only become more sophisticated
in their endeavors and therefore legitimize that as a value added business
in Domain Names.  This is also not to mention pre-payment also encourages
the use of bogus credit cards, creating yet another mess...

Mark Goodge wrote:

> At 08:02 08/06/99 -0700, Roeland M.J. Meyer wrote:
> >
> >Can we discuss this a bit? Because, I guess I stand corrected. What is
> >wrong with paying for a domain name at the time of registration? By what
> >possible reason is collecting the fees, at the time of placing an order,
> >a wrong thing? As a businessman, I don't understand this concept.
>
> As an individual, purchasing a service, that's not really a problem. I pay
> by credit card at Amazon or wherever, nd I don't have any problem with that.
>
> But when I buy something on behalf of my employer, I can't do that. My job
> is technical; we have a separate department that handles the accounts. I
> don't have a company credit card or any way to pay for domains online. In
> any case, we register domains for our customers and don't charge them, the
> billing details are set to the customer. If we were to be charged upfront
> for every domain we register, then we would need to bill the customer
> accordingly. That increases our costs, and hence those of our customers.
>
> The business world doesn't work on prepayment. Thirty/sixty day invoices
> and credit accounts are the normal procedure, and I don't see any reason
> for domain registries to be different.
>
> >> I have always stood where I stand now.  Prepayment presents more
> >> problems than it solves.  The problems it purports to solve are not
> >> significant enough to warrant the ones it would cause.
> >
> >It solves a large problem, it is called revenue stream, aka cash-flow.
>
> For the registrar, yes. For the customer, it's a pain. If prepayment for
> individuals was in parallel with credit accounts for approved corporate
> clients, then it would be OK. Realistically, if any registrar doesn't offer
> credit accounts to corporate customers, then they will lose business to
> those that do. That's their call, in the final analysis.
>
> Mark
> --
> "With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine". From RFC1925

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