Dear ICANN Board of Directors, Thank you for your continued service and work to support a free and open internet. ICANN is a large part of why the internet is today a massive engine for global commerce and information sharing, which has helped to lift millions out of poverty. The role of the BoD at ICANN shares in the responsibility for this great achievement. I'm writing to you today to share my thoughts on the proposed Amendment 3 of the .COM Registry Agreement which will directly affect the continued success of ICANN and the internet as an engine of global growth. In short, I am concerned about the magnitude of the price increases allowed to Verisign as well as the conflicts of interest that will arrive when Verisign is allowed to operate as a Registrar. I hope that you will take time from your busy schedules to consider my comment. I am roughly the same age as the public internet. I've seen it grow from a novelty piggybacking on traditional media (remember AOL discs?) to the dominant mode of information-sharing and communication in the world today. In the same time period, untold amounts of wealth have been created by some of the most unlikely people thanks to free or low-cost access to the internet and associated tools to create a website on it. As a personal user of the internet, I enjoy the immense amount of websites and information created by passionate users of the internet. These are all available to me for free thanks to the ease and low-cost of registering an internet domain name. I also operate a few websites, one of which is primarily internet-based and aimed at revenue generation. As a person with a start-up internet business, the low cost of registering and maintaining a .COM domain has been a key factor in my pursuit of this business. It is not unreasonable for Verisign to increase prices as their ongoing operating costs may change. However, their role in the .COM infrastructure does not in my opinion warrant the increases in the Proposed Amendment 3. These price increases are in fact likely to have an extremely deleterious effect and could very likely lead to static or decreased revenue for Verisign: if the price increases in the amendment are implemented .COM registrations will drop precipitously. Not only will this potentially affect Verisign, but the industry of registrars and companies who provide value-added services would see a major drop. I urge you to also consider the implications for global development; many low- and middle-income countries are projected to "come online" within the next 10 years. With the centrality of ICT to the development plans of the UN SDGs and these countries, actions like major price increases could delay the development of ICT industries across the globe. As a second point, I would like the BoD to consider the conflict of interest in allowing Verisign to operate as a registrar. Without proper constraints and auditing, what is to prevent Verisign from acting in a way that is contrary to the best interests of a vibrant and diverse internet registration and service economy? Enabling Verisign to operate as a monopoly not only violates the founding principles of the internet, but would likely lead to legal challenges from various countries. Finally, I would urge the board to take seriously the comments from people like me. We are highly engaged in the daily operation of the internet as a platform for global communication and trade and want to see the internet continue to grow. I think that many of us think that some level of price increases are reasonable, but what is currently proposed is excessive. We also want to engage constructively with ICANN and other stakeholders in this process. We hope to see transparency from Verisign, ICANN, and others in the negotiations as well as the compensation for changes in the structure of the internet. Thank you for your time and consideration. Andrew ᐧ