cctld Zak Muscovitch for CIRA Directorship - SUPPORT ZAK!!!

[fwdtech]

Zak:
Interesting phrasing on dnjournal.com/domainsales.htm

As is usually the case, Germany's .de had the most chart entries, taking nine places this time around the track. In a real oddity, .de was also the only extension to have more than one chart entry. The remaining 11 places went to 11 different extensions!

I don't know why most everyone here is afraid to rock the boat (except that crazy guy).

CIRA has lost its way since 2005. Fixing what wasn't broken never works.
Parroting 'Canada is too small a market' is trying to justify bad decisions.


The usage numbers speak for themselves ( http://www.dnforum.com/f510/zak-muscovitch-cira-directorship-support-zak-2-thread-429684.html#post1926560 ) .

The sales numbers, and values, of .de posted at dnjournal.com speak for themselves.


Time to back up and go back to what was demonstrably working.

 

[Zak Muscovitch]

For anyone interested in reading some CIRA history, I wrote an article on Domain Name News. This article focuses on where the "public interest" comes into play with CIRA. What should CIRA do with its mandate for social and economic development in the public interest? What should it do with its excess revenues? What projects should it embark upon?

 

[Namefox]

Hi Zak. Voted for you after speaking with Harold from Emall. Wish you the best.

 

[Zak Muscovitch]

Hi Zak. Voted for you after speaking with Harold from Emall. Wish you the best.

Thank you Namefox for your support!

Zak

 

[msn]

For anyone interested in reading some CIRA history, I wrote an article on Domain Name News. This article focuses on where the "public interest" comes into play with CIRA. What should CIRA do with its mandate for social and economic development in the public interest? What should it do with its excess revenues? What projects should it embark upon?

Here we go with the slippery slope argument.

You own a business, and hire managers to operate the business for you. Their job is to maximize your profits.

The business gives a good profit every year and you get income from that, because it is your business. At the end of the year, you donate money to the charity or foundation of your choice. You determine both who and how much.

If the managers of your business decide that by sponsoring a local baseball team that sales will increase and thereby increase profits for you, this is to your advantage.

But what happens when the managers decide to give contracts to friends, sponsor activities which interest them - perhaps tennis, which you do not like - or make donations that get their name in the newspaper using your profits, before you have a chance to decide how you would want to distribute them?

Then the managers are acting for themselves, even when they do not own the company.

So let us be clear: CIRA is a government-mandated entity with a utility function to provide a central registry for .ca domain registrations. As a monopoly, it is expected to function under supervision, and as a not-for-profit, it is expected to cover expenses, and not more.

CIRA should embark upon zero projects. It should provide the service for which this monopoly was given, and do so on a cost basis.

Anything else is, as in our example with willful managers, is a misuse of the mandate.

The difference between what CIRA needs and what it has expanded to encompass amounts to a form of tax without legal basis!

When I spend $60,000 on registration fees and from that CIRA puts $8000 into 'programs' this serves only the interests of the insiders at CIRA and their world view, but if I only had to pay $52,000 for registration fees, I would be able to choose how to spend the $8000, not them.

 

[question]

Here we go with the slippery slope argument..

Not sure I agree with this. The average .ca domain owner will spend exactly zero on '.ca promotion'. Nobody is in a better position to market and promote it than CIRA, if done effectively. Assuming CIRA ramped up promotion, effectively and via oversight, we all win. This is easier to see when you have less than 60k reg fees.

 

[msn]

Not sure I agree with this. The average .ca domain owner will spend exactly zero on '.ca promotion'. Nobody is in a better position to market and promote it than CIRA, if done effectively. Assuming CIRA ramped up promotion, effectively and via oversight, we all win. This is easier to see when you have less than 60k reg fees.

Let me help you understand this better:

If you sell fish, and the fish is not fresh, it will not matter how much you advertise, people will not buy your fish: the fish stinks.

That is a bad situation.

Now picture you have some nice, fresh fish: the fish does not stink, and some people buy your fish, but many more do not, because the fish is too expensive, they do not even like fish, or the last time they looked for fish, the fish smelled funny.

Once again, advertising simply will not do much for you.

CIRA seems to engage in push marketing when we really need pull from the market.

Solution:

Have more people eat fish!

Offer fish for a lower price so more people will be willing to try it.

Same with domains: .be gave registrations away for free and established itself very nicely.

If you are Joe Schmo, who knows nothing about domains, with a new business and you understand that a .com domain might cost $20 - or hundreds of dollars on the aftermarket - but you can still get the perfect name for your business as a .ca for $10, you will try that .ca domain.

The aftermarket sales are the same thing - instead of one - or none! - $10K deal for a 3 letter domain, take $3K for a 4 letter domain and that is another active .ca domain in the wild instead of undeveloped parking pages. JoeSchmo.ca with an active site improves the network neighbourhood for everyone.

When more people eat fish, other people will start to try fish for themselves.

Same with domains: if your mother, your brother and your competitor all have .ca web sites, you may too!

But when fish smells bad, people will stop buying the fish.

Same with domains: if CIRA runs as a club for insiders with opaque machinations, then people will not want to partake.

 

[question]

Agreed usage/development is key. But I dont think the fish stinks. And seems to me people buy ccTLD names based on geography not pricing. IMHO.

 

[msn]

Agreed usage/development is key. But I dont think the fish stinks. And seems to me people buy ccTLD names based on geography not pricing. IMHO.

That would be an excellent line of thought towards retaining the provincial and territorial level under .ca would it not?

 

[Zak Muscovitch]

I just wrote a piece on .CA's and why I generally support a nexus between .CA domain names and Canada, on CircleId. You can read it here. But before anyone gets too excited, I made it clear in the article where there is room for improvement and where some serious issue exist with the current CPR.

 

[katherine]

I have never been convinced that the nexus protects "the best interests of Canadians".
If they're thinking about the need to contain speculation, well Canadians can in fact speculate in the extension. It justs keeps foreigners out.
.de & .co.uk are good examples of strong, non-diluted extensions in spite of being open to foreigners. There are many more.

I understand nobody wants .ca to become like another .me or .co, but that does not justify an overprotective approach.

In fact the .ca constituency should think hard about what the current presence requirements are exactly supposed to achieve, and their relevance in the 21st century.

 

[Zak Muscovitch]

Katherine, Excellent post! I think that for many it is a 'knee-jerk reaction' to 'keep .CA for Canadians'....What does this mean really and what does it really achieve? And how does one accomplish this? These are issues that need to be re-evaluated.

 

[msn]

I have never been convinced that the nexus protects "the best interests of Canadians".
If they're thinking about the need to contain speculation, well Canadians can in fact speculate in the extension. It justs keeps foreigners out.
.de & .co.uk are good examples of strong, non-diluted extensions in spite of being open to foreigners. There are many more.

I understand nobody wants .ca to become like another .me or .co, but that does not justify an overprotective approach.

In fact the .ca constituency should think hard about what the current presence requirements are exactly supposed to achieve, and their relevance in the 21st century.

Did we not cover this already?

If you want to have registration rules from Germany, you will need their trade mark and legal system as well. A trade mark holder can sue a registrant off of a domain in a matter of a just a few days, and with reverse-onus, will be entitled to an automatic settlement from the registrant of about $2500 CAD.

Germany does enforce nexus, demands an agent for service, and has in the past removed domains with any error in this regard.

By comparison, some people here in this discussion are using aliases, anonymous e-mail accounts, and things like this which would lose them their registration in the .de space.

 

[Zak Muscovitch]

A current CIRA director running for re-election, Rick Sutcliff, just said none of you guys are primary stakeholders at CIRA:

Topic: Who are the principal stakeholders in CIRA?
Author: Rick Sutcliffe
Date: 2010/09/15 10:21am
Message:
I believe they are the vast majority of ordinary Canadians who hold domains for personal and/or business purposes, not (to name a few others)
- speculators in domains
- peripheral business around domains, such as those making money at domain law
- those "monetizing" domains, but with no personal stake in the domain
- government and/or various special interest groups with a political agenda

What do the rest of you think?

Rick
Reply to topic

You can reply to his post on the CIRA Election forum:

https://elections.cira.ca/2010/campaign/welcome/en

 

[msn]

Other than the fact he took a swing at you - 'making money at domain law' - he ignores the fact that he could look at the numbers and see that a huge number of registrations are in the hands of the top 20, 40, or even 100 registrants. Now if he could declare that he shall forgo any remuneration for being on the board, Rick Sutcliffe can exclude himself from being from the third category of special interest groups with a political agenda.

 

[question]

According to Mr Sutcliffe's bio, he "owns and operates Arjay Web Services, which acts as a domain name reseller and web host, and maintains several other Internet-based businesses and sites.."

Which means he's no stakeholder either

That's the most respectful way to answer to these wacky excluded categories suggested by him.

 

[msn]

If 'wacky' means disdainful, then yes.

 

[Zak Muscovitch]

CIRA members can vote starting now here:

https://elections.cira.ca/2010/vote/login/en

In the run-up to the election, I was very fortunate to receive the most nominations (called shows of support) amongst all 38 candidates. We came in at 57 shows of support. The nearest candidate only obtained 40. Only 8 candidates got the required minimum of 20 shows of support to be included on the final ballot. So, things have been great.

Right now though, we need to try and close this deal. I am asking all CIRA members to make the effort and go through 2 minutes of aggravation to cast their vote.

We are SO CLOSE to getting someone on the CIRA Board who knows the issues which are important to domain name investors and who is prepared to express the concerns of domain name investors to CIRA. This has been the most active and interesting election, by all reports, that CIRA has ever had. The discussions on the CIRA Election Forum demonstrate this. No matter what the outcome of the election, I think that I and others have been successful in steering the debate and putting important issues on the agenda.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me thus far. I need to ask you to help out just a little more and cast your final vote. Voting should be done right away so you do not miss the cut-off. It is just takes a couple clicks.

EVERY SINGLE VOTE COUNTS - this will be a very close election!

My campaign web site is zak-for-cira.ca

 

[poing]

CIRA members can vote starting now here:

https://elections.cira.ca/2010/vote/login/en

Voted as soon as it opened - good luck Zak!

 

[DOTCA]

Did my part too.. Yes, Zak all the way!!!!!!!!