On Wed, 25 Jun 2003, Auer, Karl James wrote:

 > And it seems to me that the only way to effectively deal with this is
 > to say that a registrar may not sell domain names directly. Period.
 > Just as a reseller may not sell a domain name at all, only the
 > service of obtaining one. The term "reseller" is a bit misleading on
 > that point altogether. 

I've been waiting for some reseller to actually state that they wish to
force domain name registrants to employ the services of some registrar's
reseller; several have been hinting at this, without saying so upfront.

While I can understand a desire on the part of resellers to have use of
their services become another compulsary layer separating those wishing
to register domain names from the registry we used to have access to, I
suspect we're not the only registrant who has no need of such services,
and no desire to be forced to pay for unwanted services either, thanks,
just so we can manage our domain/s, delegation, updating contacts etc. 

I doubt we're the last registrant in Oz perfectly happy and competent to
manage our own domains and DNS servers, and hosting those of associates.

 > > I'm not sure the answer lies in changing auDA's process either, because
 > > either way you end up either restricting registrars' business, or you
 > > are disenfranchesising resellers.
 > 
 > The only alternative I can see is to forbid registrars from
 > advertising their product except to resellers, OR to mandate a higher
 > direct selling price than they offer resellers. I don't think those
 > can work. 

The 'industry' exists to serve registrants; registrants do not exist to
become the 'property' of resellers, nor of registrars for that matter.

I do take the point that many, particularly more recently, may desire to
delegate the management of their domain - to varying degrees - to firms
selling other services such as webhosting, but please bear in mind that
this is not and must not become something registrants are forced to do.

It seems lately that there's scarcely anyone left participating in this
list who's looking at anything much from the point of view of the domain
registrants, except AuDA itself and (so far anyway) the ACCC.

Regards, Ian