I oppose the price hike.

These changes will have significant impact on the Internet for years to come, and only ICANN and Verisign have participated in this decision.

Alongside these contract changes, Verisign agreed to pay ICANN an additional $20 million dollars over five years to support ICANN's domain name system initiatives, without any clarity about how ICANN will spend the money, or who will ensure that the funds are properly spent on domain infrastructure.

Last month, ICANN, the organization that oversees domain names, announced significant changes to the contract it has with Verisign, Inc. who operate the .COM top-level-domain (TLD).

ICANN made these changes in secret, without consulting or incorporating feedback from the ICANN community or Internet users. Although ICANN has a history of making similar deals behind closed doors, and also of ignoring unified opposition against such action, we are focused on leading the fight against price increases that will harm our customers (and the Internet as a whole). This is a crucial time to raise our voices given that .COM domains make up 40% of all registered domain names online.

I oppose what is happening here!

Alan Balmer

641.233.1036