Bill,

Domains also enable micro businesses to establish themselves. By volume,
domains are registered 80% (at a guess) by companies with less than 5
employees. The price is $50 now - but without a focus on reducing price,
they would still be $140 to $300 in .au, which is a barrier to an individual
with an idea they want to try out.

The point is that domain names are really a pretty basic technical service
with very low fixed costs and a high degree of automation. Sure businesses
can afford to pay $50 for 2 years, but if the real cost is $10 for 2 years
(or less), why should they? And who is collecting the margin?

For a 2 year $50 domain name it looks like this (all prices inc GST):

auDA $8.25
AusRegistry (monopoly) $29
RegistrarX (competitive) $12.75

Its easy to see where the price distortion is. I'm not sure its registrars
that are seeing the 'rivers of gold' mentioned.

Larry

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill [mailto:ansearchwatch§yahoo.co.uk] 
> Sent: Friday, 1 April 2005 2:21
> To: dns§dotau.org
> Subject: RE: [DNS] Why have a policy?
> 
> 
> 
> --- Larry Bloch <larry.bloch&#167;netregistry.com.au>
> wrote:
> >  names would be cheaper and overall a far more
> > rational and market driven system would pertain.
> 
> I cannot understand all this "cheaper domains"
> business. Currently anyone can register a .com.au for
> as little as $50 /2 years - $25 per year. If you have
> a legitimate use for it, after all .com.au are
> supposed to be for commercial use, then what is the
> problem. Having lower prices only encourages bulk
> buying which will lead to more disputes.
> 
> > For example, I think you would find registrars keen
> to
> > have a DRP that was affordable - its in our
> interests for 
> > disputes to be handled efficiently and cheaply.
> 
> How about that if a registrar if found to have
> registered a domain without following policy then they
> pay the auDRP fee which the complainant has had to
> fork out.
> 
> Bill
> 
> Send instant messages to your online friends 
> http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com 
> 
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