To whom it may concern,

I make my living in large part thanks to the internet, and wish to speak my opposition to the proposed .COM amendment.

I am fortunate. I was born in a first world country to a middle-class family, and I have enjoyed many privileges in life thanks to that. And yet when I was fresh out of school and on a tight budget getting my career started, I struggled at times to pay for domain name registration costs.

And yet not everybody has these advantages, including some highly qualified, brilliant people, who have found themselves born and raised in poverty through no fault of their own. It is in the basic spirit of an open and democratic internet that I oppose any measure that would allow corporations dictate the pricing of a .COM address, one of the most basic gateways to a modern presence on the public internet.

Moreover, using donations to buy political clout with an international non-profit can only been seen as undermining the basic dignity of the office the world has charged with protecting that public internet, and 20 million dollars is simultaneously blatant corruption and an affront to the value of the world's most important communication medium.

Thank you,

eriklabine.com