racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

There’s an ongoing discussion at the SEO Philippines eGroup (and quite an impassioned one, too) about the pricing of .PH domains. Having worked for dotPH, I’m aware of the issues and the arguments from all sides. Of course, with this disclosure, I also cannot just divulge any information I know of that other people might be interested in.

Still, you might find the thread over SEO Philippines a good read (membership to the e-group is required, but is as simple as sending email to seo-philippines-subscribe AT yahoogroups DOT com). Abe has also posted his response on his blog, and it’s from the perspective of his being a .PH reseller.

Also, another bit of disclosure: the company that I currently work with, Enthropia , has also been active in advocating the Use com . PH campaign. And part of this is our giving free com . PH domains to eligible bloggers. We do recognize the need for Filipinos to be able to carry the com.PH name with pride.

My response to the issue

Here’s my response, below.

Those of you know know me would be aware I used to work for dotPH. While I can’t divulge the exact details about the issue, I’ll share some general insights (the little that I actually do know of what’s been going on).

To tell you the truth, it’s a stalemate. Gov’t wants to take control—or even just reassign—the .PH ccTLD, but dotPH maintains that gov’t can’t just do that since they were first to be assigned registry status by ICANN. The Philippine government can’t do anything unilaterally since it’s also through ICANN that these issues have to be resolved, as it’s ICANN that assigns the administrative and technical management of the registry.

Frankly, dotPH claims ICANN will take their side on this matter. If the gov’t decides to sue, then it will take years and years for the issue to be resolved, especially given the slow pace of the legal system here and the lack of really solid electronic-commerce and IT laws (and do consider that one of the main proponents of e-commerce laws here is Joel Disini’s brother, Atty. JJ Disini—so there might be some difficulty trying to interpret the laws to gov’t’s advantage. Though arguably they’re not always on the same side when it comes to IT stuff, when it comes to business they seem to be a strong team).

Perhaps as IT professionals and businesspeople, we can lobby for better dialogue between gov’t and the .PH registry, if what we want is to have more competitive pricing. Do consider that other ccTLDs around the world also still charge $35 per year. The market is different. You can sell CNO domains at $5 and still earn, because of the sheer volume; in contrast, the market for .PH is considerably smaller. Of course, there’s also the basic concept of supply and demand—if dotPH sells for lower then there will be higher demand for .PH domains. The thing here is to find the optimal price at which everyone’s a winner ( i.e., domains are priced competitively and are affordable, and the registry/registrars earn even better than with the $35 prices).

(End of quote)

A bigger issue

Other SEO Philippines members who have far better background on the matter than I have pitched in their two cents’ worth, and there seems to be bigger issues cited, particularly about the .PH namespace not being a “business” and that the registry should be treating their appointment as a trusteeship. If you’re interested in reading about this, then I suggest you head on to the e-group message archives.

Wasn’t that a catchy title?

Okay, so we have the initial details. And I’ve half a dozen people on our list already. As usual, the perfectionists we are, we’re still sorting out some fine details, but we’re just about ready to register the free domains for those who have signified interest and who made it to the list.

Half a dozen seems a mighty small number, don’t you think? We think so, too. And we’re just waiting for more people to signify interest in what we have to offer.

So if you’d like your very own free .COM.PH domain, one year blog hosting, and a bunch of other stuff (mostly free tech support and SEO assistance), do send me an email with the following:

• Your real name
• Your existing blog address
• Your existing blog’s traffic levels for the past couple of months (screenshots would be great)
• Passport-sized pic (Okay, kidding here! But my Man-Blog co-bloggers might just feature you and it could be your shot at fame!)
• Your desired .com.ph domain name
• A short note on why you think you should blog over at a .COM.PH site (a free one at that).

My email addy’s jangelo (at) gmail (dot) com.

I might have missed a few emails the past days (either buried in my inbox or my host did not redirect to Gmail), so in the rare case I haven’t been getting back to you lately, do drop me a line.

We’ll be waiting.

Okay, so there were some questions on the free . com . ph offer, and I got to provide a few generic answers to some of the inquiries. Sorry I have to add to the “conditions” (but we still don’t ask for any big thing in return). Giving something for free isn’t all that easy, I’ve come to realize.

Here are more specifics on the deal.

I’ve been making teasers and pitches on our offer for free .com.ph domains for Filipino bloggers. Well, it’s all about establishing our own Philippine ccTLD as an ideal place to be for Pinoys, and we would be shelling out our own funds just for this.

What’s the catch, you say? Well, nothing much, really—we just ask you to be active at blogging. We don’t even intend to monetize the domains, at least in the short term. Let’s just put it this way. Domains (and TLDs) are like real estate. You develop them and the value grows over time—not only the value of the specific xxx.com.ph domain, but of the com.ph namespace itself. I think you’d be pretty tech-savvy enough to understand these concepts (especially since you’re reading my blog!) by now.

Recently, I’ve been explaining that the .com.ph domain and web hosting would be free for at least a year. People have been picking up on the idea (i.e., Manuel, Yuga, Erwin, Raymond) and some are quite concerned about sustainability and continuum, in that a user might be expected to pay up in the second year. Let me clarify that it would be for at least a year, and the deal will not necessarily end there.

So actually there is a small catch, but it’s not really a condition wherein we will be asking for you to give us something in return. The only condition is that the recipient would be using the domain actively—that is, you would continue to actively blog on the com.ph domain given to you (say, a couple of times a week would be great, but there’s really no set frequency or number of postings). In that case, we will continue to provide domain and hosting for free, for as long as the sites are active (I’m going on record on this)!

I’ve already got a handful of inquiries. If you are interested, please do send me an email at jangelo (at) racoma (dot) net (yes, .com.ph will work, too) with your blog URL and a few summary stats, such as how long you’ve been blogging, and your uniques, visits, and pageviews for the past couple of months—we’re interested in knowing a bit more about your blogs and blogging activity, of course.

Update: Check out this post for further details. We’re just about to set up the initial set of bloggers. If you’re interested, again, do send me an email.

Here’s another post in my series of articles on the .PH domain namespace. Those of you who are aware that I used to work for the .PH registry (nice people, btw) might be wondering why the heck I’m writing about .PH, and whether I’ll be sharing some juicy insider information on the issues the ccTLD had been, and is still currently, involved in. Well, I’m still not sure about the extent of my knowledge of the .PH issues, but from what I know, things are not likely to take a drastic turn in the near future. I mean this with reference to how .PH is run and managed in light of the Philippine government’s attempts to wrest control from the private sector.