Fresh TLD registries ask for 75% cost reduction
Citing struggling registries, group requests temporary fee rollback and marketing effort.
The gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) has asked (pdf) ICANN to cut its fees for a year and to undertake a $3 million marketing effort to promote fresh top level domain names.
In a letter to ICANN the prior week, RySG chair Paul Diaz stated that “A number of gTLD operators are struggling” and reducing the fees will give the registries more money to do marketing.
Right now, registries with fewer than 50,000 annual transactions pay a quarterly fee of $6,250. RySG would like this fee reduced to $1,562.50 per quarter for a year.
The letter points out that a registry with just 1,000 names is paying $25.00 per name per year in ICANN fees. Domains that existed ahead of fresh TLDs generally pay lower fees.
Additionally, RySG wants ICANN to seed $3 million in a fund “to promote universal awareness of fresh
gTLDs to the general Internet user community, and universal acceptance of fresh gTLDs across the
Internet.”
RySG states the money ought to come from the $100 million surplus it expects ICANN to have from running the fresh TLD program. (This amount does not include the $200 million + in auction proceeds). Funding the discounts and marketing would cost regarding $20 million. ICANN has stated its fee structure for the fresh TLD program was designed to be cost neutral.
While many fresh TLD operators are indeed struggling, some of the ones that have many strings are not. Donuts, which operates regarding 200 strings, has stated it is very profitable. It would get over $900,000 in fee reductions if ICANN were to adopt RySG’s proposal.
