cb

I've raised similar concerns in the past.

In July 2003 it was reported that AusRegistry earned about $9 million in the
first 12 months of the contract ... dramatically exceeding its prediction of
$6.5 million.

In view of this disclosure, I raised in a posting to the DNS list in Sep
2003 <http://dotau.org/archive/2003-09/0225.html>, the following public
policy questions relating to costs and prices of .au domain name licences:

a) what was the ROI for AusRegistry?

(b) has AusRegistry - a monopoly seller of domain name registry services in
.au - made 'above normal' profits?

(c) are registrars, resellers and registrants paying too much for services
along the .au domain name services supply chain?

(d) what are the implications (costs, risks and benefits) of AusRegistry
"giving away 50,000 free registrations ... in .id.au"?

(e) why should .com.au and .net.au registrants subsidise .id.au and .org.au
registrants?

(f) how effective and well managed are the price controls arrangements in
the registry licence agreement?

(g) would price cap regulation of registry services (CPI-X) recommended by
the Competition Model Advisory Panel* have produced a better outcome for .au
domain name services industry and consumers?

(* As a member of the Panel, I had a hand in writing the recommendation.  In
hindsight, the recommendation was neither well formed, nor well explained in
the Panel's final report of June 2001,
<http://www.auda.org.au/pdf/cmap-model-final.pdf>.)

I suggested that such questions might be best answered in a
review/evaluation of the auDA scheme.

Hopefully, there will be an independent review of the scheme, well in
advance of the expiration of the 4 year registry contract.

Ian Johnston



-----Original Message-----
From: magic2147&#167;optushome.com.au [mailto:magic2147§optushome.com.au]
Sent: Monday, 17 May 2004 7:01 PM
To: dns&#167;dotau.org
Subject: Re: [DNS] Rationale of .au high price was: [DNS] Cat got your
tongue Chris?


On 17 May 2004 at 14:33, Kim Davies wrote:

> Whilst I am as keen as anyone to see prices drop, I don't agree that .au
> is a failure due to pricing.


On 17 May 2004 at 17:37, IntaServe  |  Amin Kroll wrote:

> The key is to build up the value of .au names. How to do that? Educate the
> market and that costs money.


There is no particular value in a .au domain name. It is a cypher and
signifies nothing
not even Australianess as namescout.com.au and plenty of others registered
by or on
behalf of foreign entities demonstrate.

There is no real evidence that having a .au domain has any overwhelming
influence
on Google or any other significant SEs results (for a "sites from Australia"
search).

The main reason that most Australian based companies register .au domains is
because the names which are still available are relevant to their business
not having
been grabbed by speculators etc.. This is largely due to the fact that .au
domain
names are licenced on a restricted basis (- less so now than previously)
and, as we
are all aware, is a great contrast to gTLD domains.

However the domains available for Australian business are expensive - much
more
than they should be. The reasons for this are:
a) too high a price being charged for the basic product by the wholesaler to
the next
level of distribution
b) two levels of distribution between the wholesaler and the consumer ie.
registrars
and resellers.who get their cut.

The registrar and reseller levels should be eliminated and wholesaler should
be
required to sell the domains to consumers or their agents direct without the
other
levels getting in the way.taking their cut and essentially not adding any
real value.

The company where I turn up from time to time is a reseller for a registrar.
They
sometimes only charge the registrant the net registrar price. They never
load it.
Being a reseller has no value for them other than to stop (some) registrars
using their
"relationship" with the registrant to onsell unsolicited other products
which are in
direct competition with the company's own services including hosting,
design, SSL
certs. SEO etc..

It should also be noted that very few Australian businesses have a turnover
in excess
of $1 million - most are micro business and for them EVERY expense needs to
be
watched. It is particularly galling for them when they become aware that
part of their
hard earned is frittered away promoting the most pointless .au domain space
of all via
the sponsorship of a motor racing car.

cb


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