To whom it may concern, I am the owner of a number of .com domains, including one that dates back to the origins of the Internet (it is in the top 50 oldest continuously held domain names). Thus, I am thoroughly familiar with the history of the Domain Name System, ICANN, and domain pricing. The current proposal to increase .com prices is unsupported by either history or economics. It is also unsupported by any director indirect customer of domain wholesalers. Furthermore, the amount of the increase is utterly unreasonable. Inflation is currently running at around 1.5-2% per year, and has been at that low level for the past several years. Thus, it is absurd to suggest annual increases of 7%, far above the inflation rate. ICANN and Verisign have offered zero evidence to suggest that their per-domain costs have increased at all, let alone at such an inflated rate. Verisign has a monopoly on the .com top-level domain. If unrestrained, it will unquestionably use its monopoly power to raise prices arbitarily. It is ICANN's job to prevent such monopolistic behavior; if ICANN fails in its duty, it is certain that the government will eventually step in. Verisign's contract should be renegotiated so that price increases are limited to more than the general inflation rate. Domain names are a public good, and should be treated as such. -- Geoff Kuenning geoff@cs.hmc.edu http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~geoff/