> -----Original Message-----
> From: dns-bounces+larry.bloch=netregistry.com.au§dotau.org 
> [mailto:dns-bounces+larry.bloch=netregistry.com.au§dotau.org] 
> On Behalf Of Darryl (Dassa) Lynch
> Sent: Friday, 9 June 2006 2:47
> To: '.au DNS Discussion List'
> Subject: Re: [DNS] france ditches magic number 
> requirementRe:Domaindisputeheats up

[snip]
> 
> The price of .au was historically high and it is taking quite 
> some time for it to come down to more reasonable levels.  The 
> reasons are not anything to do with AuDA but more a 
> reluctance to reduce high profit levels.  We now see more 
> reasonable pricing but there is still room for improvement, 
> beyond reducing the wholesale cost which should always be 
> reviewed regularly also.

Now this is actually not true at all.

.au has high prices for a number of reasons - almost all directly a result
of auDA managemento of the space.

Registry Contract
=================
auDA's management of the tender process resulted in an uncompetitive field.
This was because to any major potential tendered, I believe it was clear
that auDA and Chris in particular were unlikley to look favourably on any
tender other than AR's. There were a number of international registry
operators who were very keen to bid (Verisign, Neulevel) , but failed to do
so. I was told directly by them that the reason why they didn't submit a bid
was that they felt it was a done deal, that the tender was structured to
ensure AR won and that bidding would be a waste of time as a result. 

Lack of competition in the tender process (only one bid received by closing
time despite the contract being worth tens of millions of dollars in PROFIT)
reduced auDA's leverage in negotiating a Registry Agreement and increased
the price all Australian's pay for their .AU domain names. You have to ask
yourself why there was only one bid for the registry when the winning
tenderer stood to make between $20m and $35m margin over 4 years? I believe
there were no bids because everyone felt it was a sweatheart deal, a done
deal.

Empire Building
===============
Millions of $$$ have been transferred out of auDA into separate legal
entities that extend auDA's mission (in my opinion). The result - higher per
domain name fees for Australians.

Cost control
============
As any business knows, you can't make money if you don't control cost. auDA
is different. It gets revenue regardless of its operational structure. It
seems sometimes the issue is not so much how to sustain revenues as how to
spend them. Take a look at auDA's budgets - there's a lot of fat going
around - the travel budget is a small fortune - Australian domain name
owners are paying for all kinds of junkets that are (in my opinion) of
dubious benefit to Australian domain name owners.

What does all this mean? .AU domain names are expensive. It's not the
registrars making the big $$$ - we are the only level that have to compete,
which keeps our margins down. It's the monopoly functions that are sucking
the cash - the registry and auDA.

And remember, registrars only have their slice of the pie, the Registry and
auDA get their cut on EVERY domain name sold or renewed. The real cost to
Australian domain name buyers is auDA. When you talk about expensive .AU
names, auDA IS the problem.

Larry