http://www.icann.org/correspondence/bliley-response-08july99.htm
...ICANN "decisions" are nothing more than the recognition of
community consensus, and require voluntary compliance by a
large number of independent actors to have any effect at all...
Even with the relatively limited amount of competition that has
begun for name registrations, no accredited registrar has yet to
offer services at a rate higher than the $35 charged by NSI, and
thus both NSI's $9 registry fee and the $1 cost recovery fee due to
ICANN are being absorbed by the registrars, not paid by users, and
presumably being reflected in lower operating margins than might
otherwise exist.
... even just a $2 reduction in the average cost of an annual name
registration would save consumers approximately than $20 million
annually,
Note 6: ...it seems reasonable to expect that the fee that NSI will
eventually be [*]permitted[*] to charge for accessing the registries
that it operates will be significantly lower than the $9 temporary
charge that is now permitted.
----
>From these quotes (and the fact that NSIs $35 annual fee for
registering is mentioned 7 times), one is obviously to conclude that
NSI grossly overcharges; that with a bit of competition the price to
the registrant will drop, and that a $1 surcharge to support ICANN
(thus $10m /yr) is hardly anything to be concerned about.
Nevertheless, it is also evident that ICANN can hardly afford for NSI
to remain outside its registrar's agreement/ contract, and thus the
legitimacy of calling that contract 'voluntary' is seriously
undermined. In short, ICANN's argument is that *if* everyone
agreed to support ICANN, the overhead would not be a problem;
therefore they *should* agree, voluntarily.
The fact remains that the total ground for expecting NSI to
understand this point rests (note 3) "in fact, in Amendment 11,
[where] NSI agreed to support the transition of USG DNS
responsibilities to 'NewCo,' (now ICANN), agreed to 'recognize
NewCo pursuant to a contract between NSI and NewCo,['] and
agreed that ICANN would have 'the authority . . . to carry out
[ICANN's] responsibilities.' "
Admittedly, its lawyerly writing in the finest tradition, but ICANN
collectively, and its members individually, might have been wise to
practice a bit of lawyerly *reading before sticking their heads in the
DNS mess.
Indeed Amendment 11 states, a couple paragraphs earlier,
"Commencing upon the Phase 1 deployment of the Shared
Registration System, and for the term of this agreement, NSI's
prices for registry services through the Shared Registration System
in the gTLDs for which NSI now acts as the registry, will be no
more than a dollar amount per registration/year to be specified in a
further amendment [not yet written] reflecting NSI's costs and a
reasonable return on its investment. This price cap will be adjusted
via an amendment to the Cooperative Agreement to reflect
demonstrated changed costs of NSI arising from newly enacted
legislation, [*]NewCo fees[*], inflation, regulations, standards,
costs of new litigation (including settlements and judgments)
in excess of NSI's operating plan or changes in the operation of the
registry, or to fund specific additional activities in the event such
activities are reflected in an amendment to the Cooperative
Agreement."
In short, NSI is to be reimbursed all its expenses. If it did come to
the point of paying ICANN anything at all, I'd bet NSI immediately
bills ICANN to get it back again, plus costs. ICANN may, willy-
nilly, find itself in the business of running a competing *registry* --
and shouldnt every devout free-enterpriser be ready to cough up a
dollar to help them make the play?
kerry
