Tom, Thanks for your positive reply. I am looking forward to announcements about IDNs!
The letter from Monica Moniker suggested an even nicer pricing structure. But I know we cannot have it all. Regards, Marc On Mon, 3 Feb 2003, at 19:01 [=GMT-0500], Tom Katsiroubas wrote: > Marc, > > Thank you for your letter. We are talking to VeriSign later this week about > IDNs and I will be addressing the issues and proposal you listed. > > I do agree a cheaper price would increase new registrations and the renewal > rate for everyone, but price break by the Registry might be difficult to > obtain, but maybe not impossible if positioned as a time-limited promotion. > > Everyone should feel free to email me directly or Discuss on the issues you > would like to see addressed with VeriSign's IDNs. > > I to see a big opportunity in IDNs and want to ensure that we all go down > the correct path on this. > > Regards, > > Tom Katsiroubas > TLDs Product Manager > Tucows Inc. - [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Marc Schneiders > Sent: Sunday, February 02, 2003 4:31 PM > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: IDN: Draft letter to Verisign > > > [No suggestions as to improvement of the interpunction and use of Capitals > at this stage, please. Just textual.] > > --- D R A F T --- > > Hello VeriSign! > > We've noticed a lot of people are worried about their IDNs. They ask > themselves what they are paying for? We know about the new plugin, I-Nav, > and must say it does work fine. But that doesn't satisfy most of our > customers. One says he runs FreeBSD and the plugin doesn't work on that or > Linux, or even Solaris and True64. Another mentions email. A third has a > Mac. And so on and so forth. > > Now you know as well as we do, or even better, that IDNs is really a > gorgeous market, if they fly. And since the new .ORG does no longer offer > them, we cannot buy them anywhere else than with you, in .COM and .NET. > And after 2005, when .NET will be open for rebid and another registry > could get it, we might be able to buy only .COM IDNs. Now don't tell > us that you are waiting until then to explore this market to avoid > orphaned IDNs in .NET as we now have them already in .ORG? > > There must really be a big jump soon, dear VeriSign. Else some other party > may jump. Into this market we mean. ccTLDs could in co-operation, or on > their own, get ideas. It is not that they are patented, IDNs, are they? > > So we would like to kill two flies in one smash: > 1. Make those who renew their IDN feel that they got value for their > money. > 2. Sell more IDNs. > > We do know you have tried a few things. The new plug in, and changing the > DNS for answers to queries that contain characters higher than ASCII 127. > Not sure that was clever. (Never make ICANN _and_ the IETF angry about the > same thing. Then you lose.). Anyway, even that would not amount to a true > big jump for IDNs. Email still doesn't work with this, does it? There is > nobody here who has as much as an MCSE but several insist anyway that this > DNS subversion might send email to servers that shouldn't get it. So it is > getting worse. > > Now before the lament comes that it is all the fault of others who block > progress with IDNs and not you: We pass on that. We say we believe you for > now. We come back to that perhaps later. It is not important now. What is > important, especially since we work through RESELLERS, is that the > customer seller relation improves in permanence. In plain Dutch: Long term > contracts. Yes, lock them in. Or for marketing purposes say that the > customers and we (you too) commit ourselves to the product, and therefore > to each other. > > Concrete: IDNs must be renewed but for now we do it for two years. Yes, > not one, but two. We suggest that you charge us, Tucows, $6.01 per two > year renewal. > > Since we would like to announce this in time for all of us to make special > offers to VLIBs (Valentine Late Impulsive Buyers), we would like to hear > your approval of our proposal February 6 latest. > > Thank you! > > Tucows and its resellers >
