Re: [soac-newgtldapsup-wg] First JAS WG call - follow-up

[Avri Doria <avri@xxxxxxx>]

On 4 May 2010, at 10:58, Evan Leibovitch wrote:

> I am personally in favour of lowered fees for certain kinds of registries 
> rather than subsidies and other forms of arbitrary charity. The first is a 
> policy that applies to all and based on policy, the second's availability is 
> dependent on outside factors (ie, how many auctions have there been in a 
> given year?) and frequent changes to its "implementation details". This is 
> also a matter of attitude. As a matter of publicly-minded policy ICANN should 
> not make the emergence of culturally valuable TLDs -- especially non-profits 
> -- dependent on the volatile handouts of others.


While I am in favor of trying to get the fees reduced, I still think that 
prices that are predicated on cost recovery (no matter how accurate that cost 
recovery - see below) may be out of bounds for less developed regions.  And 
while I understand that some part of the developing word are beginning to argue 
against aid as solution to their problems, I think that in general aid is still 
a viable vector for helping new registries in developing regions come into 
being.  I am not making any conclusions about whether this aid should be in the 
form of grants or low cost loans or some cooperative model.  I just believe 
that we should look at both paths to solution: lower costs, and help for those 
who may need it (according to some yet to be defined model and criteria)


On 4 May 2010, at 11:14, Andrew Mack wrote:

> This seems to make sense.  These past efforts are in essence sunk costs at 
> this point and as the process moves forward it does not appear that ICANN 
> will be struggling for resources.  Why not just "write off" these past 
> expenses and move forward with actual expenses?
>  

Various people have been making that claim for years.  But to no avail. 

But if this group, with the weight of the Board resolution were to make the 
claim, perhaps it might get consideration. 

One can also argue that all of the delay, whether accidental or intentional, 
has increased the costs. To make the applicant pay for the extra costs brought 
on by the delay could be seen as compounding the injury caused by the delay.

a.