Dear sirs,

I just heard about this proposed amendent. I'm a minor domain name consumer (a Christian missionary in Japan), but I do a lot of web building, and as a result, I personally own four .COM domain names for missions activities and am involved in managing IT for other groups using three more .COMs (one of which I am writing from). All are small volunteer ministries with little or no income and no influence in the overall administration of the internet, so we trust groups like ICANN to administer wisely. (I also own or manage multiple .ORG and .NET domains in the same way - those are not under fire at the moment, but I can't help but wonder if they might be next, since .net is also operated by Verisign and PIR will soon become for-profit.)

From what I understand, it sounds like Verisign agreed to give you money in exchange for a ruling change to allow them more freedom in pricing. Yes, I know it wasn't technically "in exchange", but it sure smells like a bribe to those of us on the outside.

It also would allow Verisign to operate directly in the registration business (as a reseller), controlling the system much more than should be permitted. Yes, I'm aware that operators of new gTLDs started since 2012 have been able to do this (that doesn't seem proper either - I feel that gTLD operation and domain name sales should be completely separate to prevent conflict of interest, but that's water under the bridge now), but .COM is 42% of all domain names - no single company should have that much control over the internet. I would feel more comfortable if gTLD operation were not done by for-profit corporations at all, but that's clearly an unrealistic dream at this point.

In addition, I'm concerned about the lack of transparency. The deliberations were apparently made privately with only Verisign, and many details about the agreement are still not publicly available. The internet affects everyone, and negotiations of this nature should be public, or at least involve additional affected parties, so that decisions are fair and open.

Please preserve the integrity of domain name management by preventing conflicts of interest and keeping discussions transparent and open. Thank you.

Regards,
Karen Ellrick
(Domains I own or manage: proverbs2525.org, danellrick.com, l4jp.com, 14jp.com, thinkword.com, crashjapan.com/crashjapan.org/crashjapan.net, oicjapan.org/oicjapan.com, japanharvest.org/japanharvest.com, prayersummitsjapan.net)