PRE-PAYMENT
POLL
- Scope of survey: Members
of the InterNIC
domain policy discussion list
- Potential size of survey (with 100%
participation): 405
- Survey duration: January 19 - January 26,
1999
- Participation optional
The following poll was posted on the InterNIC
domain policy discussion list on January 19, 1999 to
gauge the subscribers'sentiment toward Network Solution's
domain registration payment policy. Responses were
collected from January 19 through January 26. This was an
informal, independent poll; it was not conducted under
sponsorship of NSI or InterNIC, host of the online
discussion group.
-
- Prepayment was favored by a ratio of more than two to
one by the respondents. Among those not in favor of a
pre-payment policy, half preferred 30-day payment window
before the domain name is returned to the available
pool.
|
Responses
(excluding duplicates)
|
46
|
|
Percent of group
responding
|
11.4% of discussion
list
|
|
In favor of
prepayment at time of registration
|
65.2% of respondents
|
|
Not in favor
of prepayment
|
30.4% of respondents
|
|
Abstentions
|
4.3% of respondents
|
POLL
and RESPONSES
- 1. SHOULD INTERNIC CHARGE
for DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATION at the time the
application for a name is submitted?
- [
 ]
Yes
- [
]
No
- Abstain
|
- 30
- 14
- 2
|
- 2. IF YOU RESPOND "NO",
what payment policy would you
recommend:
- [
]
Current InterNIC policy is
okay
|
- 4
|
- [
]
7 days to pay or name returns to
available pool
|
0
|
- [
] 30 days to pay or name
returns to available
pool
|
7
|
|
[ ]
60 days to pay or name returns to
available pool
|
1
|
- [
]
90 days to pay or name returns to
available pool
|
0
|
- [
]
Forget payment. The names are
part of the public trust and
ought to be free
|
1
|
- [
]
All checks made out to the
personal account of [your
name here]
|
0
|
- [
]
Other
|
1
|
|
COMMENTS
by RESPONDENTS
- This is a good
question and a very live issue. However, to make any
sense of it it needs to be put into the context of what
the world will look like soon, not what it currently
looks like. When 'competition' (as mandated by Amendment
11 to the Co-operative agreement under which NSI operates
the InterNIC Registry) comes, all registrations will be
submitted through 'Registrars'. These Registrars will
then pay the appropriate fee to InterNIC (aka NSI). Even
NSI operating as a Registrar (i.e. dealing with the end
user) will pay a fee on to the Registry (i.e. itself). So
there are two questions and the answers are then
obvious:
- Should the Registrars
be required to pay a fee to the Registry on entering each
registration? Yes, Registrars should be required to pay
the fee for every name that they enter into the DNS as a
Registrar. However, the Registrars may well have a credit
line with the Registry based on commercial
factors.
- Should end customers
(i.e. Registrants) be required to pay fees to the
Registrars on ordering a registration? Policies will of
course vary. This becomes a matter of credit control in
business, which is of course down to the individual
Registrars. The beauty of this is that the Registrars
carry the risk if they offer credit. . . . With this
model, every Registrar can have a different model of
credit control, but all have to pass on the same for each
registration.
- Forget payment -
Plausible reasoning for certain non-com TLDs (such as
.edu) although the registry and registrar do perform a
service and should be compensated.
-
-
- If the intent is to
prevent the tying up of all the previously registered
domains by registration, non-payment, and re-registration
then perhaps the initial registrations should be handled
the way they are now, but if the domains are put on-hold
then to re-registeration by the same party should require
a pre-payment. I would hate to put the customer who is
entirely new to the Internet and who who purchases their
domain name, web design AND their initial (real) internet
connection all at the same time at a disadvantage under
those who are already connected and can purchase securely
online or those with a credit card who can pick up the
phone to make payment
-
-
- Prepayment, but if a
previous proven responsible ISP {1} registers a domain
for a customer and it can be proven that the customer
then does not pay them, their money will be returned to
their account.
-
-
- A write-in question:
3. What should Internic do about the performance problem
experienced of late:
- [ ] Say
nothing is wrong and ignore it
- [ ] Blame
it on a spammer but proclaim the problem solved,
repeatedly
- [ ] Change
the output of the whois servers with no notice,
breaking a myriad of scripts and procedures and making
life even more difficult for people who are already at
the mercy of this government sanctioned
monopoly
-
A "modified"
pay-as-you-go plan could be implemented as thus:
- A prospective domain
registrant fills in the form and submits it to NSI. upon
receipt, NSI merely files it as "pending". No changes to
the root, and no whois changes, either.
- NSI bills the
prospective registrant.
- The day the payment
is received, the domain name servers are checked. This
process is repeated for N days until the servers answer
authoritatively. if they never do, the payment is
returned/credited.
- After the payment
clears and the servers answer, both the root and the
whois are updated.
- Note that this
procedure is already designed for multiple registrants
for the same domain;
- for step 1.,
merely file the registration forms for the same domain
in ascending order of receipt.
- for step 3., the
first registrant that comes up with good money and has
properly set-up name servers, will be the one that
gets the name. for multiple registrants that meet both
of these criteria in the same day, the registrant who
got the form in first, gets the name. for step 4., the
fees received, if any, are cheerfully
refunded.
This kind of policy has
the following effects:
- it should halt all
but the most serious of speculators.
- it lessens the burden
on the root update procedure as well as the whois
servers.
- it gives all comers
an equal shot (money and servers required before
_anything_ happens), as the criteria for registration is
clear. It more
aptly describes the spirit of the DN system,
registr{ie,ar}s notwithstanding.
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