When ICANN was first created, one of its most important goals was to break up the Verisign/Network Solutions monopoly. ICANN has failed to accomplish this goal as both .com and .net are still controlled by that same monopoly. Additionally, ICANN then extended this monopoly to other TLDs including the additional monopolies created with the new GTLD program. ICANN was on the right track by implementing the registrar system, but did not address the lack of competition at the registry level. The end effect is all profits are now at the registry level with guaranteed registry price increases every year. While registrar prices and margins are competitive, registry prices have consistently increased for no reason even as registry costs have significantly declined. Having a separate contracted entity for each TLD serves no purpose other than to hand a monopoly to that entity - with no competition - so they can collect an ever increasing annuity (due to decreasing costs and guaranteed price increases in the contract with ICANN) for no actual work since ICANN's multi-stake-holder model creates all the policies. This separate registry entity serves no purpose and is not adding any value to the domain ecosystem or registrants. Outsourced registry services by large registry providers can be had for less than $2 per domain per year. It is our belief that ICANN should take back all GTLDs (new and legacy) by refunding new GTLD auction proceeds and other actions as necessary and directly outsource the registry function to the many available registry providers at a significantly reduced wholesale cost. It can routinely bid out contracts for registry services for each TLD. This would significantly simplify the ICANN operating model, would decrease ICANN's footprint, increase GTLD's stability and resiliency, and would bring competition for GTLD registry services. It would drastically drop end user domain registration pricing for all TLDs. There is no reason to grant monopolies on TLDs (which are a public resource) to select for-profit organizations (registries) that have arbitrary pricing control. New TLD registries have engaged in abusive pricing practices including premium registration/renewal pricing for select popular names, land rush auctions, expiration auctions, and ongoing significant pricing increases. Additionally, ICANN has done nothing about most domain registrars that take ownership of domains at expiration and sell them to the highest bidder for their own profit. This practice is rampant in the industry with all top registrars participating. Most end users are unaware of this fact. ICANN must introduce competition at the registry level to lower pricing and address domain expiration practice abuse. Please focus on domain registrants first. In addition to the registry pricing and competition issue, ICANN has done nothing on whois privacy for registrants. We believe privacy and audited access should be built into whois and not by the individual registrars that may have different policies and access control. A separate Privacy and Proxy Service Provider Accreditation is completely unnecessary overhead for ICANN, registries, registrars, registrants, and the public. We insist every employee at ICANN be required to own a domain name without registrar whois privacy (since ICANN requires the actual owner to be listed) and across several registrars. Once every ICANN employee feels the pain of having their personal / home contact details published publicly and the rampant abuse of it, they will not need multi-year expensive studies to measure this abuse. Please fix the massive abuse of the whois system and lack of privacy. Sincerely, A concerned anonymous registrar on behalf of its registrants Posted anonymously to avoid potential business ramifications as a result of current registry monopolies.