[registrars] thoughts for conference today

[Elana Broitman]

I would love to see lower overall costs.    Unfortunately, I don't think that self-policing is the answer.  We tried to pass best practices almost 4 years ago, and they are not really used.  That was a first step in self-policing.  Moreover, as Rick humorously alludes, which of us will submit to competitors' "policing"?

That said, there are clearly other ICANN costs that can be handled off-budget, or at least in the discretionary category.

For example, why shouldn't participants pay for meetings.  ICANN proposed a 2.4mm budget for travel and meetings. Direct participation fees can alleviate some part of that.    Let's face it - ICANN locates its meetings in far-flung locations, so that most of us are paying high air fare, and all of us are paying non inconsiderable amounts for hotel, per diem, etc.  Therefore a fee of about $500/person should not be a burden or prevent someone from attending.  Plus, remote "attendance" - though far from perfect - is free and already occurs.

One of the important side benefits - in addition to potentially taking $1-1.5mm off the top (and off the $3.8mm that ICANN is trying to find from the set registrar fees) - is that all ICANN participants pay.  So, the companies and other attendees, all of whom play a role in determining policies that we are bound to by contract, effectively become payers into ICANN.  I've heard the complaint from ICANN that they don't have an effective way to charge non-contracted parties.  This would be a way.

Elana Broitman
Register.com
575 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018
Phone (212) 798-9215
> EFax  (800) 886-2716
Fax   (212) 629-9309
ebroitman at register.com 


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-registrars at gnso.icann.org
[mailto:owner-registrars at gnso.icann.org]On Behalf Of wessorh at ar.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2004 1:48 AM
To: Bruce Tonkin
Cc: Larry Erlich; registrars at dnso.org
Subject: Re: [registrars] thoughts for conference today


if self policing  is good then i am sure everyone won't mind if  I audit 
their whois ;-)

Bruce Tonkin wrote:

> 
>Hello Larry,
>
>  
>
>>2) Self Policing. We should be exploring ways to lessen the 
>>administrative burden that ICANN has by assuming as many (or 
>>all) of the enforcement issues as a group, so that ICANN 
>>doesn't have to increase fees to do the same thing that we 
>>can probably do for less money. 
>>I think that an organization setup and funded by registrars 
>>can take care of the issues for 25% of what it would cost for 
>>ICANN to do the same. I would be willing to support such an 
>>organization. 
>>
>>    
>>
>
>This idea has appeal.  I find it hard that every year we are asked to
>pay more for 
>Compliance but I have never actually seen any compliance done.  With
>respect to policy development - most of this is done by those outside of
>the ICANN staff (ie the cost is not paid for by ICANN).
>
>Regards,
> Bruce
>
>  
>