Re: [Membership] Fees for Organizations

[Daniel Kaplan <dkaplan@terra-nova.fr>]

A 11:42 01/05/99 -0500, Eric Weisberg a écrit :
>What is the purpose of the proposed fee?
>To raise money?  To make organizations feel they have more of a "stake" in
the game?
>To discourage some organizations from joining?

The reasons why I raised the question of fees for organizations are the
following:
- The MAC in its majority is against fees for individuals, for 2 reasons:
  1/ It might discourage some people from joining (to me, this
     is not a very good reason)
  2/ Collecting fees, which would in any case have to be scaled
     depending on country revenue per capita, would probably cost
     more than it will bring, especially in countries where credit
     cards are not widespread (this, I admit, carried my vote).

- The problem, then, is how we fund the cost of membership.

- Charging a fee to organizations would help get this funding. It should
fill no other purpose. The fee should not be so high as to discourage small
enterprises of associations from joining. It should not have a complex
structure, and for example should not require ICANN to monitor an
organization's size, revenue, etc. It should provide no special rights to
organizations.

- This, as Kent Crispin has pointed out, is not that unusual. There are
several organizations in the world who at least charge organizations more
than individuals without granting them any special rights. The reasoning
behind that is that organizations subsidize individual membership.

>What is the rationale for charging organizations for participating in this
>management/governance/regulatory mechanism?  Are there special benefits to
those who
>help make the system work for which they should give more than their time and
>effort?

In an ideal, fluid world, I personnally would charge everybody a small
amount, but I believe this is not feasible here.
Time and effort, especially for organizations, is money. Adding actual
money to this membership cost does not change the nature of the
contribution. As in every other membership organizations, time, effort AND
money are requested of members; However, since there is usually a huge
difference between the levels of time and effort members give to these
organizations, money acts as an equalizer.

>How many organizations do we expect to be joining?

Difficult to evaluate. I hope several thousands, and expect several
hundreds. However, this largely depends on the level of time and effort
ICANN will put in its outreach program.

>How might membership be affected if there is
>a) a nominal fee;
>b) a small fee; or
>c) a more significant fee?

To me, membership in a) is slightly higher than in b) and much higher than
in c). However, the meaning of "significant" differs :
- Between countries,
- Between individuals
- If you're an individual or an organization

>What is the cost of administration?

Mostly the cost of verification, and this is a very necessary cost.

>Would this be the "membership fee" camel's nose in the individual
membership >tent?

I you read me, it could be. It does not HAVE to be either. Free individual
membership can be written down as a principle, if we all choose to make it
a principle.

Daniel
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