[alac] ALAC comments on the ICANN settlement?

["John R Levine" <johnl@xxxxxxxx>]

I gather from the statement on the ICANN web site that the board will be
taking comments on the settlement until they vote.  I cannot tell whether
they're planning to vote at their special meeting on the 8th, which I
presume will be a teleconference closed to the public, or at the Vancouver
meeting on 4 Dec.  (Denise, do you know?)

Either way the ALAC owes them some comments reflecting the settlement's
effect on the at large community.  Although I have some concerns about the
process to deal with future Sitefinders, the major obvious effect is the
high prices written into the proposed contract, and the language that says
that the prices will only go up even though the dropping cost of computing
and the economies of scale of such a large TLD should make them go down.

As has been noted elsewhere, Afilias offered to run .NET with a fee of
$3.25 and Tucows informally offered to run .COM for a $2 fee.  I don't
understand how Verisign justifies a $6 price, and I doubly don't
understand how they justify a 7% annual price escalator.

The increased ICANN fee, from 25 cents to 75 cents over two years also
needs justification.  I can believe that ICANN needs more money, but the
accounting to date has been so opaque that I don't understand what they're
spending it on now, nor how they would spend an extra $12M/yr, since the
language in the agreement is completely vague.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl@xxxxxxxx, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor
"I shook hands with Senators Dole and Inouye," said Tom, disarmingly.