At 19:05 2/11/98 +1100, you wrote:
>] Firstly, many thanks to all who were involved in the excellent Discussion
>] paper.
>
>Ditto.
> 
>] 7. Lastly - pricing
>] -------------------
>] A $5 fee is unworkable. It would cost double this just to administer receipt. Essentially, revenues for registrations/renewals must cover the expenses of the technical, admin and legal sides of the body. 
>
>The way I read it was that this was just to cover the self-regulatory
>regime (admin) overheads, not to cover costs of the registry/ies or
>registrars.  Presumably this could be remitted in say $5000 chunks,
>with registr* keeping track of the number of domains and payment status.
>
>There is also a question here about whether this would just apply to
>commercial domains and/or domains for which a fee is payable.  But that
>may be a detail to be worked out later.

David

Domain registration is a low tech, high admin industry. $5 per name won't really pay for anything.

As far as commercial/non-commercial is concerned, if a single entity looks after .au in its entirety, the only really relevant issue is .com.au - statistically nothing else under .au is relevant (from a price perspective). Free .gov.au names won't effect the pricing model - but obviously is a policy issue to be decided.

What I would like there to be a recognition of is that the real issue is .com.au and how we reduce cost and increase competition in this area. The other 2LD's are clearly important, but not nearly as relevant.

NetRegistry favours a not-for-profit, private company owned by its members, providing central .au registry services on a fair and equal basis to its members and the public in return for a reasonable service fee to cover admin, tech and legal expenses.

Desireable also is the development of a legal defense fund to cover disputes and perhaps indemnify agents who adhere to an 'Acceptable Practice' policy.
_____________________________________________
Larry Bloch                   
Chief Executive Officer       
NetRegistry Pty Limited       
email:  larry§netregistry.au.com
Office: +61-(0)2-9699 6099
Fax:    +61-(0)2-9699 6088


http://www.netregistry.au.com
Domain House, PO Box 2088, Sydney, NSW 1043
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