From .co to Neustar.
Nicolai Bezsonoff had a good job in banking in NYC when his friend Juan Calle called him and asked to meet. Juan told him about his plans to turn .Co into a brand and asked Nicolai to join him. Bezsonoff didn’t want to give up his good job to join a domain name company, but then he did what any banker would do: he ran the numbers. He liked what he saw and joined Juan as he relaunched the .co domain. Today, Nicolai joins us on the Domain Name Wire Podcast to talk about how he got into domains and his views on the industry as the current VP & GM of Registry Services for Neustar, which bought the .co registry. Hear his thoughts on what responsibilities registries should have around content, how registries can differentiate and more.
This week’s sponsor: Name.com.
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Daniel says
Nice job!!
Sincerely,
Daniel Meyers
http://Www.Ebaby.com
“The Best Place For Everything Baby
Charles Christopher says
When one registry increases prices, then there is something to complain about that creates pressure on one’s registrar, which is what Nicolai stated.
However, if price caps are removed on all TLDs at the same time, and all TLDs raise prices, the registrar is in an ideal position to say to the customer “its ICANN’s fault, go talk to them”. I think Nicolai carefully avoids this issue. Registrars will enjoy the price increases as their percentage will also increase as well. So long as it’s across the board, and registrants are devoid of options, no registrar will care other than for their increase in revenue.
Likewise there has been equal treatment issues of registrars by registries, i would think the removal of price caps will eliminate this as well. I think we also are making a mistake thinking that no price caps still means common pricing, more likely variable pricing will be the norm across all registries. Registries may well extend “volume pricing” to larger registrar further eroding innovation, not increasing it … The fewer customers you have, the less your support costs are … On that point, when I first become a registrar Neustar was the only registry I did not setup on because they were an absolute NIGHTMARE to deal with and they admitted it to me and to others (this was before Nicolai’s time at the company).
“Not all price similarities, or price changes that occur at the same time, are the result of price fixing. On the contrary, they often result from normal market conditions.”
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-laws/dealings-competitors/price-fixing