Dear Maureen,

I am sorry but your comment got me to raise my eyebrow: we wouldn't be expecting an end-user to analyse these costs, but we would expect ALAC members to. That's why they're elected as ALAC members. If we start reasoning that topics in ICANN are out of scope for the ALAC because an end user would not be expected to analyse the topic or be directly involved in the topic, then we can pretty much close shop because the majority of topics that are treated at ICANN are complex and need prior knowledge. I fully subscribe to the point made by Kaili that ALAC members are the end user's lawyers in the ICANN process.

On the .NET agreement, it is strange that, once again, the agreement would be just renewed and not put to a bidding process. And the commenter makes a good point about anti-trust laws. But for some reason, the US government has closed its eyes on this industry such that there is one major Registry player and one major Registrar player. It it for the ALAC to call for action? That's the question you need to ask yourselves. It is perhaps the fundamental question for this TLD renewal. It requires answers to two questions: one that requires skills and knowledge; the other that requires a discussion and a choice.

1. Skills and knowledge: in the case of .NET, are conditions fulfilled for an automatic renewal of the Registry agreement, if there is such an option?
2. Discussion and choice: if conditions are not met, or there is no such automatic renewal option, then does the ALAC want to pick this up and make a point, bearing in mind this could start a process with an uncertain end?

Kindest regards,

Olivier

On 08/05/2017 06:23, Maureen Hilyard wrote:

But really Alan, would we be expecting the ordinary end-user to be analysing these costs and other sections of the document in a similar way, without any prior expert knowledge about the ICANN contractual bidding process, previous contracts and other details you have outlined? Its outside of our scope.

On Mon, May 8, 2017 at 3:32 PM, Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca> wrote:

Maureen and Bastiaan have review the .NET Registry Agreement revisions and are not recommending and ALAC statement.

There is one comment already pointing out that there the contract (both the current one and the revised one) allow for a 10$ increase in the price to the registrar per year. Note that for New gTLDs, pricing is out of scope of ICANN registry agreements. Based on the 2011 price of $4.65 and the 2017 price of 8.20, it would appear that they have used the full 10% over the term of the last current agreement. The 10% rate is the same as that in the current .ORG agreement. .COM presumably due to the size of the registrant base is price-capped.

The comment also says the contract should not be renewed, but rather put out for competitive bidding - something that is not within ICANN's ability to decide (and confirmed by the statement calling upon government anti-trust action). See https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/comments-net-renewal-20apr17/2017-April/000000.html.

Alan

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