Dear ICANN,
As a registrant of Namecheap and other registrars, I object strongly to the new proposed .COM amendments to ICANN's agreement with Verisign.
First, the price increase leaves vulnerable small businesses and private contractors who rely on their personal websites for bringing business to them. I rely on a personal .com website (
paulwromaine.com) for referrals for my small business editing and consulting, and my other personal website for person's interested in my field of books and libraries (
bibliowonk.com). Many small artists in niche fields, rely on a personal domain as a brand. This suggested price increase will force many early career (or struggling) artists to abandon their domains, which for many of them is a key part of branding their personal art.
Second, it is not clear how the additional funds asked by Verisign (and which ICANN has agreed to) will directly benefit end-users by improving the underlying infrastructure of the domain registry system.
I urge ICANN to reconsider this agreement and renegotiate it to favor end-users, and to make sure the final agreement is more transparent. Although I am but a small part of the overall ICANN ecosystem, greater transparency about the uses of the price increases, is better for the entire domain registry system.
Thank you for your consideration.
PLEASE NOTE, the ICANN submission form required an installed email client. Since I used gmail's web client, the form did not work properly. I'm pasting the form's data below my signature.
Yours truly,
Paul Romaine
New York, NY
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