The point I was trying to make by forwarding the spam from Bottle is that if
you have a garden variety name like mine and someone takes it off the market
immediately it is unfair.

When the email arrived I was angry that someone would do that without my
authorisation. I find this type of marketing offensive. If the email had
offered me six months additional registration at no cost I would be
motivated to get another domain, except I was angry at the pre registration.

As Mark points out there is nothing free here just a small try before you
buy period.

John

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Hughes [mailto:effectivebusiness§applications.com.au]
Sent: Wednesday, 17 September 2003 1:49 AM
To: dns§lists.auda.org.au
Subject: RE: [DNS] Enetica Certificate of .id.au


As far as I can see what's actually happening with the id.au promotion is:

1. The id.au domain names aren't really 'free' at all - except in some
specific circumstances which may rarely happen.


2. They're basically a 'deferred payment' domain, where payment to the
Registry is due 6 months after registration.  From the Registrant's point of
view, this is identical what would happen if they registered a domain via a
Re-Seller or Registrar who accepted payment on 180 day terms.  Its like
buying a sofa at Harvey Norman under their 'Make No Payment For Six Months'
deal.


3. The deferred payment window of 6 months applies to the Registrar paying
the Registry - there's nothing on the auDA or AusRegistry site I can find
that says the 6 months payment deferral has to apply to the Registrar's fee
as well as to the Registry fee.  However, its difficult to envisage a
situation where a Registrar would not give a matching 6 month deferral in
its fee to the Registrant.


4. The fact that the id.au domain names are registered for a normal two year
period with payment to the Registry due after 6 months unless the domain
name is deleted by the Registrar, tends to reinforce the view that its
actually just a 'deferred payment' domain name Registration, rather than a
'free' domain name.


5. The id.au domain names are only 'free' if the following conditions are
met:

a) The Registrant decides to stop using the domain name after 6 months.  I
believe this is unlikely, as one of the major reasons for having a domain
name is to give 'email address permanency', rather than having an email
address tied to one's current ISP.  As the Registrars participating in this
promotion are matching the Registry fee 6 months payment deferral with a 6
mth deferral on their own fee, you can bet their opinion on this co-incides
with mine - otherwise those Registrars would be very concerned about being
out of pocket for the costs they incur in setting up the domain, trying to
convince the Registrant to keep it, and then deleting the domain name so
they don't have to pay AusRegistry for it.
b) The Registrar (and Reseller is applicable) match the 6 months deferral of
payment.
c) Note that I haven't found any information on whether payment of the fee
from the Registry to auDA for these domain names is also to be deferred for
6 months.



Since its effectively a 'try before you buy' situation that is likely to
have a very high 'conversion rate' (i.e. Registrants deciding at 6 months to
keep the name), one could even ask the question "why not run the same option
for ALL .au domain names?".  If it has merit for id.au domain names, why
wouldn't it have merit for com.au, net.au, asn.au or org.au?

If the conversion rate is very high, then there's virtually no financial
disincentive not to extend it to all .au domain names.  If the conversion
rate is high then everyone (Registrars, Registry, auDA) is going to get
paid - they just have to get used to a 6 month delay in the cash flow, and
this may well be offset by an increase in the number of domain names
registered.



Regards, Mark

Mark Hughes
Effective Business Applications Pty Ltd
+61 4 1374 3959
www.pplications.com.au
effectivebusiness§applications.com.au


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