dotPH

Mr. Fred dela Rosa
Executive Editor
Manila Times

Dear Mr. dela Rosa,

This is regarding a piece by Mr. Chin Wong in the Manila Times on Tuesday, April 6, 2004 and also appearing in your online edition.

The piece refers to guidelines being drafted by the NTC regulating the administration of the PH domain. I would like the opportunity to respond and hope that our response is given equal prominence to the said piece.

There are factual errors that need to be corrected, including (quotes from Mr. Wong's piece in italics):

"On his website, Disini clearly shows that he thinks of the domain is his private property."

This is a false assertion by Mr. Wong. Nowhere on the website do I claim that the domain is my private property. In fact, it is the government, by asserting 'sovereign rights' over the domain, that is improperly claiming ownership.

"This also flies in the face of a key ICANN document, RFC 1591, which says concerns about rights and ownership of domains are inappropriate. It is appropriate to be concerned about responsibilities and service to the community.

Actually, all we ever do talk about is service. We have repeatedly asked Usec. Pena to identify problems he has found with our service so they can be addressed.

See the ff:
Nov. 14, 2003
Feb. 5, 2004
Mar. 12, 2004
Mar. 25, 2004
Mar. 31, 2004

Instead, all the guidelines ever discuss are rights and ownership. It would be nice if Mr. Pena would focus on problems he sees with the service, in keeping with RFC-1591. I'm sure this is what ICANN would like to see happening.

"(T)he PH domain is important because it's the only country code assigned to the Philippines that is recognized worldwide. Because of this, the government, private businesses, schools, other organizations and individuals use the PH domain to promote the Philippines and its products and services."

Contrary to what Mr. Wong implies, there are alternatives, including COM, NET, ORG, EDU, INFO, BIZ and many others.

The school where Mr. Wong teaches uses ateneo.edu; his former employer uses itnetcentral.com; even this publication uses manilatimes.net. One doesn't need PH to set up a website. One can easily use COM and still be identified with the Philippines, the way unionbankph.com does.

Because everyone has a choice, the market compels dotPH to be competitive in its pricing and its services. Mailforwarding used to cost $20 per mailbox; it now costs $1.33. We pick up checks for free, give free webforwarding and free nameserver hosting, accept online credit card payments, and allow 24/7 real-time domain registration and management.

PH is one of the more affordable country domains available. But because COM has far more users than PH, we compete in terms of quality. A PH domain ($35) with 15 mailforwarding addresses (optional for $20) costs $55 a year from dotPH. A COM domain with the same features would cost $347 a year from Network Solutions, the top COM registrar.

We hope this clarifies some of the issues involving the PH domain.

Thank you.

Regards,

JOSE EMMANUEL DISINI
.PH Administrator