Afilias chosen as new .au registry operator

[DomainNames]

I think giving back to the community is an important part of a NFP.
Looking at the recipients of grants from the auDA Foundation do you think any are not worthy?
https://www.audafoundation.org.au/grant-recipients/

Perhaps the Australian Domainers Association should apply.

Are you aware of the auDA Foundation review and investigations?

Many past auDA foundation grant recipients grants would have been better provided by other organisations or Government grants.

The auDA Foundation has serious questions over it.

 

[DomainNames]

What are you talking about Sean.
The Registry sets a wholesale price.
Registrars set their own retail price.
The consumer has a choice of where to buy.
How is that anti competitive?

Read all those links from the ACCC and read all the unredacted auDA minutes, past contract negotiation details and communications, forum posts from supply parties relating to wholesale and retail pricing etc.

.au Wholesale pricing NOT retail....

• auDA Fee $
  
• Wholesale Registry Fee contract terms.. why the wholesale price went down but up again " as supply did not pass on or use the reduced 4 x 25 cent price discounts" years ago.
  
• Icann Fees( and additional auDA donations)
• auDA Foundation Fee
• "minimum" price discussions"
• Retail "Price signalling"
• etc

 

[Lemon]

auDA Fee $

Just like the government auDA has overheads. That is why we pay things like TAX and GST.

Wholesale Registry Fee contract terms.. why the wholesale price went down but up again " as supply did not pass on or use the reduced 4 x 25 cent price discounts" years ago.

Supply is under no obligation to pass on discounts. Forcing them to would be anti-competitive behaviour.

Icann Fees( and additional auDA donations)

As far as I am aware these are set by ICANN.

auDA Foundation Fee

As I posted earlier a NFP should give back to the community and business should not complain that some of their costs are going back into the community.

• "minimum" price discussions"

• Retail "Price signalling"

Setting a RRP is not price signalling it is common practice. It is up to Supply to decide what retail price they wish to set.

 

[Cheyne]

If any are looking to sell then I know of people who are looking to invest.

We buy registrars too.

Can you list the absolute gems and your feedback on them?

No, as it would be inappropriate to do so. We will raise them privately with auDA.

Massive profits have been made by Ausregistry and auDA from the .au wholesale pricing. This is fact. Fat can be cut out of the wholesale pricing.

The wholesale price better come down or consumer action ( Registrars, Resellers .au domain name registrants) will occur this time and auDA may find themselves without their role as .au management all together..

Understand that this comment is based on nothing more than pure speculation as we have been told nothing, but I do not believe the price that registrars pay will fall by more than $1.00, if anything at all, because I think auDA have given a clear indication in their submission that they believe they need a bigger buffer which may mean an increase in their fee.

I could be wrong, but that is how I am reading the current situation.

new pricing that sees a drop in the AusRegistry wholesale price to $14 (for a 2 year licence) for com.au and net.au domains and further drops as volumes increase"

This already happened, all the way through to 2014, then the contract was renegotiated and it went back up.

1 July 2014 - $19.25 inc GST
https://web.archive.org/web/2015031...formation/registrars/registrar-accreditation/

1 March 2013 - $18.15 inc GST
https://web.archive.org/web/20130410061951/http://www.auda.org.au/registrars/accreditation/

1 March 2012 - $18.43 inc GST
https://web.archive.org/web/20120320103932/http://www.auda.org.au:80/registrars/accreditation

1 December 2010 - $18.98 inc GST
https://web.archive.org/web/20110217082852/http://www.auda.org.au/registrars/accreditation/

1 April 2009 - $19.25 inc GST
https://web.archive.org/web/20100211112410/http://www.auda.org.au:80/registrars/accreditation

So over the course of 5 years the price had reduced by $1.10, just as Jo said it would, before going back up. Over the same period of time the retail prices of providers have fluctuated far more than $1.10 through discounting, A/B testing, targeted coupons, etc.

Competition is happening in the market without the wholesale price being changed by any significant amount. There are 48 accredited registrars to choose from. There are thousands upon thousands of retail resellers. Current prices range from $140 down to $20. Competition is strong.

 

[snoopy]

Cheyne, do you know why it then increased again?

Re competition: As has been said there is no doubt there has been competition between registrars. This however is about registry competition.

 

[Bacon Farmer]

The profits should be given back to those that created it (the domain buyers) through lower pricing.

At the very least they should consult the buyers on where it should go.

 

[Cheyne]

Cheyne, do you know why it then increased again?

Honestly, I don't know why because registrars were never consulted on this process, but it was the same time that they brought .org.au, .id.au and .asn.au up to the same price as .com.au/.net.au.

Having said that, business operating conditions in 2009 were very different to that of 2014. We were riding the GFC out, the dollar had gone from above parity to sinking well below, and operating costs sky rocketed in many areas. That's not me crying poor, that's just how it was.

Re competition: As has been said there is no doubt there has been competition between registrars. This however is about registry competition.

There can only be one registry at a time, so I just don't understand why this is a talking point.

This is why there is a tender process that happened all bar one time (from memory) where they were given exclusive rights to renegotiate and continue.

Does anybody here actually believe that AusRegistry did a bad job? I can't think of any registrars that I know of who think this, and there are no major outages to point to and say "well, this happened". Change for the sake of change is always a bad idea and it just seems like this is what has taken place without proper consultation to contracted parties.

So the question that I am now asking is why the need to change? Did AusRegistry not move on price and that alone was the deciding factor? Because aside from that there really isn't much else that could have been improved on. And if it was, did Ned, Nicole and Tim all excuse themselves from the vote due to a very clear conflict of interest?

 

[snoopy]

Cheyne, I don't think anyone is saying Ausregistry did a bad job of registry functions.

The question is whether someone else can do a just as good job for a lower price.

Why do you single out only demand directors. You could make an argument that just about every director has a conflict on this issue due to buying or selling domains.

 

[Cheyne]

Cheyne, I don't think anyone is saying Ausregistry did a bad job of registry functions.

The question is whether someone else can do a just as good job for a lower price.

Okay, so we agree that there is really only one reason for the change and that is price alone, assuming AusRegistry didn't come in with a lower price.

Why do you single out only demand directors. You could make an argument that just about every director has a conflict on this issue due to buying or selling domains.

Fair point, which is why this decision should not have been a board vote, or the make up of the board is wrong. The balance of power on the board should rest with the independents so that decisions of this nature can be made without agenda bias.

Registrars are the ones who have to deal with the registry operator, so why were we not consulted? Why were we not asked to view the proposals being put forward (blindly if necessary) and evaluate them on their merits? Given that Cameron has now said to multiple people in public places that he has a "vision" and that he wants to "lead us in to the future", it's beginning to sound like this was a Captain's pick that everyone was urged to follow.

 

[snoopy]

Okay, so we agree that there is really only one reason for the change and that is price alone, assuming AusRegistry didn't come in with a lower price.

There was reference to other factors in the press release, but I have no idea about any of that. Personally I think the main factor should be price assuming stability, security, transition are all similar. Who knows how many factors they looked at, we are just guessing.

https://www.auda.org.au/industry-information/registry/registry-transformation-project-2017/

Fair point, which is why this decision should not have been a board vote, or the make up of the board is wrong. The balance of power on the board should rest with the independents so that decisions of this nature can be made without agenda bias.

I think it needs industry people making these decisions as well. How knowledgeable are the independents on these issues?

Registrars are the ones who have to deal with the registry operator, so why were we not consulted? Why were we not asked to view the proposals being put forward (blindly if necessary) and evaluate them on their merits?

Do you also consult demand class, where does it end? Seems that it all needs to be done under secrecy.

For supply class, isn't the main issue that they don't want a change of registry because a change would cost time & money? Fair enough, but should that become some type of criteria?

Given that Cameron has now said to multiple people in public places that he has a "vision" and that he wants to "lead us in to the future", it's beginning to sound like this was a Captain's pick that everyone was urged to follow.

Just from the outcome so far I think Cameron has done a good job on this. I don't think there is any evidence of a captains pick.

The "my vision" stuff doesn't sound great (if those comments are correct) as that is the type of stuff that led to the SGM, where someone make a decision based on their belief without consultation. But what does that have to do with the tender which many members have actually calling for for years?

I think people are now waiting to hear about "price" before judging things further.

 

[DomainNames]

This change is not likely to get consumers better pricing. In fact the pricing is likely to go up as a result.

The cost to registrars to make this change is substantial and given the time frame to do this will be even harder to get done. So these costs need to be passed onto the consumer. So expect higher prices as a result.

Do you think auDA should have passed on more of the 60% lower Afilias pricing to Registrars plus auDA should have in fact lowered their own fees and not instead increased them? This is extremely poor management.

Take auDA out of the mix, the DoCA / ACMA runs the Afilias contract obligations and Supply get access to a much lower overall wholesale price and less hassle.

Registrars would see a benefit having the lowest possible wholesale price, 100% security and stability for themselves and not at at the cost of the now fattening up of auDA and their expenses which we are now seeing.

Ausregistry have been running special pricing and Aflias has their July special pricing but it seems very few Registrars let their Consumer customers know or have passed it on or will pass it on in July.

Is Afilias charging $0 for July? The only fees are that of auDA which they will be increasing?