- comments-net-renewal-20apr17@icann.org

[Comments-net-renewal-20apr17] CIS comments on .NET renewal
by Vidushi Marda May 30, 2017

May 30, 2017

Comments from the Centre for Internet and Society on Renewal of .NET Registry Agreement ______________________________________________ Prepared by: Vidushi Marda With inputs from: Sunil Abraham and Pranesh Prakash. The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is grateful for the opportunity to comment on the proposed renewal of the .NET Registry Agreement. CIS would like to express its strong opposition to the proposed renewal. This is for three primary reasons: 1. Inconsistency with ICANN’s core values It is important to consider the proposed renewal in light of two Core Values which are meant to guide the decisions and actions of ICANN. Section 1.2.(b)(iii) of the Bylaws contemplates ICANN’s responsibility to, “ Where feasible and appropriate, depending on market mechanisms to promote and sustain a competitive environment in the DNS market;” and Section 1.2(b)(iv) envisages, “Introducing and promoting competition in the registration of domain names where practicable and beneficial to the public interest as identified through the bottom-up, multistakeholder policy development process;”. The presumptive renewal of the .NET Registry agreement precludes an open tender, thereby significantly undermining competition in the DNS market. It ignores the public interest consideration, as the absence of competitive pressure on the contract also means the absence of pressure to lower user costs. 2. Historical accident Verisign’s operations over .NET is a historical accident; one that does not justify its collection of .NET revenues in perpetuity. Policies for Contractual Compliance of Existing Registries[1] was approved in 2007 to include presumptive renewal. However, during the deliberations in that Policy Development Process, there was significant objection to presumption of renewal of registry contracts; with constituencies and individuals pointing out that such renewal was blatantly anti competitive, and allowed for presumption to prevail even in the case of material breaches. The proposed agreement contemplates using a portion of Registry Level Transaction Fees to create a “special restricted fund for developing country Internet communities to enable further participation in the ICANN mission for these stakeholders.” This form of tokenism to the global south will do little to achieve meaningful participation and diversity of civil society. .NET should instead, be opened to a competitive bid and open tender, in order to encourage innovators from around the world to benefit from it. 3. Irregularity of contract The argument that the proposed changes are to bring the contract in line with other gTLD registry agreements doesn't hold because this contract is in itself completely irregular: it was not entered into after a competitive process that other gTLD registry agreements are subject to; and it is not subject to the price sensitivity that other contracts are either. [1] - https://gnso.icann.org/en/issues/gtld-policies/council-report-to-board-PDP-…

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[Comments-net-renewal-20apr17] Against Renewal of .NET registry agreement between ICANN & Verisign >> supplement
by Bruce Henry Lambert May 30, 2017

May 30, 2017

Against Renewal of .NET registry agreement between ICANN & Verisign [supplement] Summary Position of this Comment: STRONG OPPOSITION Regarding proposed .NET registry renewal posted by ICANN at: https://www.icann.org/public-comments/net-renewal-2017-04-20-en Supplement to our prior points: We belatedly recognize some comments critical of Verisign and/or ICANN have been anonymized, the submitters perhaps fearing retaliation or blacklisting. This highlights the possibility many more members of the public might wish to comment, but don't participate due to ICANN / Verisign vast powers, monopolist strength, and our continuing significant need for services under the control of those being critiqued. In such sense, is this public comment exercise at all valid or realistic? ICANN and Verisign employ top tech people, but they're likely underpaid. It's the technical sections that keep the internet safe and secure, yet too much of the multimillions rolling through these organizations goes to executive strategies for monopoly. The contracting procedure offering the no-bid monopoly to operate .NET & .COM contradicts two of ICANN's Core Values: [Use market mechanisms to promote a competitive environment] and [Promote competition to benefit the public interest]. ICANN could & should investigate, calculate & publicly reveal alternatives to the costs of continuing the Verisign monopoly. Thank you all involved for maintaining our multi-stakeholder environment. Sincerely Dr. Bruce Henry Lambert Stockholm, Sweden

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[Comments-net-renewal-20apr17] Opposition to Renewal of .NET Registry Agreement
by Concerned Anonymous Registrar May 29, 2017

May 29, 2017

We strongly oppose the Renewal of the .NET Registry Agreement. When ICANN was first created, one of its most important goals was to break up the Verisign/Network Solutions monopoly. We believe it has failed to do this as both .com and .net are still controlled by that same monopoly. ICANN created the registrar system, but no competition at the registry level. While registrar prices have dropped dramatically and stayed low, registry prices have consistently increased for no reason even as registry costs have declined. Having a separate contracted entity for each TLD, in this case .NET/Verisign, serves no purpose other than to hand a monopoly to that entity - with no competition - so they can collect an ever increasing annuity (due to decreasing costs and guaranteed price increases in the contract with ICANN) for no actual work since ICANN's multi-stake-holder model creates all the policies. This separate registry entity serves no purpose and is not adding any value to the domain ecosystem or registrants. Outsourced registry services by large registry providers can be had for less than $2 per domain per year. It is our belief that ICANN should take back all GTLDs (.com, .net, new GTLDs, etc.) and outsource the registry function to the many available registry providers at a significantly reduced cost. It can routinely bid out contracts for registry services and even balance load across multiple providers thereby increasing operational resiliency of the TLD. This would significantly simplify the ICANN operating model, would decrease ICANN's footprint, increase the GTLD's stability and resiliency, and would bring competition in pricing for GTLD registry services. Please focus on domain registrants first. In addition to the registry pricing and competition issue, ICANN has done nothing on whois privacy for registrants. Instead, it has launched several initiates to force domains offline for inaccurate/outdated contact information even while this pubic information remains greatly abused by spammers and phishers. Some registrars offer their own whois privacy proxy services whereby they list themselves as the public owner of the domain. We believe privacy and audited access should be built into whois and not by the individual registrars that may have different policies and access control. We insist every employee at ICANN be required to own a domain name without registrar whois privacy (since ICANN requires the actual owner to be listed) and across several registrars. Once every ICANN employee feels the pain of having their personal / home contact details published publicly and the rampant abuse of it, they will not need multi-year expensive studies to measure this abuse. Please fix the massive abuse of the whois system and lack of privacy. To bring it back to the main point of this message, ICANN must not renew the Verisign .NET registry contract as it is not in the best interests of domain registrants or the public good. ICANN must introduce competition at the registry level. A suggestion for this has been offered above. Sincerely, A concerned anonymous registrar on behalf of its registrants Posted anonymously to avoid potential business ramifications as a result of current registry monopolies.

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[Comments-net-renewal-20apr17] Essential inclusion of Single Character Labels into Verisign's .net Registry Agreement
by William Blackwood May 29, 2017

May 29, 2017

1. First Place Internet, Inc. public comment: Background: Via ICANN's 2007 Reserved Names Working Group, Verisign received permission from ICANN in 2010 to sell its single character label .net domain names. Having achieved this valuable concession, Verisign needs to document and codify it in the Registry Agreement. Failure to do so will be to the significant detriment of Verisign's shareholders and customers. Recommendation: The language of Appendix A of Registry Request Service Ticket ID: X2A2P-4O7C4 (status date 2010-08-12) should be added, with appropriate modification, to the current proposed Registry Agreement for .NET 2. Internet Commerce Association (ICA) solidarity and support from Phil Corwin, ICA Staff Counsel: From: Phil Corwin [mailto:psc@vlaw-dc.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2017 9:55 PM To: William Blackwood Subject: RE: Follow-up on CPH Discussion Bill: I just sent a draft .Net comment letter for review by the Board. That draft was based upon an outline I sent them two weeks ago and that they subsequently approved. Therefore it does not have any language along the lines of what you have suggested. However, in my cover email I let the Board know of your request, shared its language, and told them that I had no issue with its objective. The Board should soon be sharing the draft letter with all ICA members and you will have an opportunity to advocate for its inclusion. Two questions about your comment: 1. Do you have a link to/text of Appendix A of Registry Request Service Ticket ID: X2A2P-4O7C4? 2. Why just single character domains? Why not 2-character as well, since the Board approved them for new gTLDs in November 2016? That's all I have for now. I'll be monitoring any email on this from Barcelona. Best regards, Philip Philip S. Corwin, Founding Principal Virtualaw LLC 1155 F Street, NW Suite 1050 Washington, DC 20004 202-559-8597/Direct 202-559-8750/Fax 202-255-6172/Cell Twitter: @VlawDC "Luck is the residue of design" -- Branch Rickey From: William Blackwood [mailto:wblackwo@tampabay.rr.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2017 10:50 AM To: Phil Corwin Subject: RE: Follow-up on CPH Discussion Phil, as an ICA member, I would like to provide our unedited comment in its entirety, authored by First Place, and submitted through the ICA channel. On behalf of First Place Internet, Inc., I want to formally provide this public comment: Background: Via ICANN's 2007 Reserved Names Working Group, Verisign received permission from ICANN in 2010 to sell its single character label .net domain names. Having achieved this valuable concession, Verisign needs to document and codify it in the Registry Agreement. Failure to do so will be to the significant detriment of Verisign's shareholders and customers. Recommendation: The language of Appendix A of Registry Request Service Ticket ID: X2A2P-4O7C4 (status date 2010-08-12) should be added, with appropriate modification, to the current proposed Registry Agreement for .NET Thanks, Bill, VP of First Place Internet, Inc., and ICA Silver Member, $5,000 minimum annual ICA contributor for the past 8+ years. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

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[Comments-net-renewal-20apr17] Proposed Net price increase
by Kenny Parks May 27, 2017

May 27, 2017

Dear ICANN, Why in the world would you even think that raising the price of .NET would be of any value to the consumers. Who do you serve with those huge salaries you receive? Apparently the general public is last in your priorities. The .Net needs to be more accessible rather than more expensive if the space is going to flourish and grow and raising the price above the price of COM is counter-productive. As many others have pointed out this proposed increase benefits no-one but yourselves and Verisign and could even be construed to have the appearance of collusion. You need to stop filling your own coffers and get back to doing your job, protect the interests of the public. Kenneth D. Parks

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[Comments-net-renewal-20apr17] .net registry agreement
by Danny D Sullivan May 27, 2017

May 27, 2017

There is no reason that the cost of .NET registrations should continue to rise. I would welcome competition for the .NET contract. As I understand it, several other companies would be in a position to provide the same service (Afilias, Neustar, Nominet, Google, Amazon). Danny Sullivan

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[Comments-net-renewal-20apr17] I oppose the prposed .net agreement renewal
by Alex Lerman May 26, 2017

May 26, 2017

I oppose the proposed renewal : https://www.icann.org/public-comments/net-renewal-2017-04-20-en As many have pointed out, the costs to run such a registry are falling, not rising. The proposed agreement would unfairly line the pockets of Verisign at the expense of the public good and therefore I strongly oppose the renewal. Sincerely, Alexander Lerman

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[Comments-net-renewal-20apr17] Against Proposed Renewal of the six-year .NET registry agreement between ICANN and Verisign
by Bruce Henry Lambert May 26, 2017

May 26, 2017

Against Proposed Renewal of the six-year .NET registry agreement between ICANN and Verisign Expected monopoly collection of revenues: One Billion US Dollars approx. ($1,000,000,000.00) Regarding proposed .NET registry renewal posted by ICANN at: https://www.icann.org/public-comments/net-renewal-2017-04-20-en Summary Position of this Comment: STRONG OPPOSITION It is irregular to award a huge monopoly contract with no open tender. Presumptive renewal of a contract this size is outside standard business practices, and reflects inadequate / substandard oversight, disregarding public interest. Opening this contract to competition will help lower user costs, largely eliminate unjustified windfall profits, and greatly reduce the appearance of potential corruption. The reasoning for many changes in this contract is said to be "Updated for consistency with registry agreements for other gTLDs." But we understand the .NET Registry Monopoly is fundamentally unlike other registry agreements with the major exception of the .COM Registry Monopoly (also peremptorily arrogated to Verisign). Other commercial gTLDs passed through a competitive proposal & tendering process that both Verisign and ICANN would hereby dodge, giving the appearance of inappropriate collusion. This proposed renewal and its terms promise to harm consumers. As of today (late May, 2017), the domain name base for .net is approximately 15,000,000 domains. Considering approximately 15 million annual .NET registrations, and a contract term of six years, with Registry Operator service fee of US$8.20 and authorized increases of 10% at start of each calendar year from July 2017: $8.20/yr (assuming half year, 7.5m domains) Revenues: US$61,500,000 from Jan 2018: $9.02/yr (15m domains) Revenues: US$135,300,000 from Jan 2019: $9.92/yr (15m domains) Revenues: US$148,800,000 from Jan 2020: $10.91/yr (15m domains) Revenues: US$163,650,000 from Jan 2021: $12.00/yr (15m domains) Revenues: US$180,000,000 from Jan 2022: $13.20/yr (15m domains) Revenues: US$198,000,000 from Jan 2023: $14.52/yr through June 30, 2023 (assuming half year, 7.5m domains) Revenues: US$108,900,000 So this non-competitive ("sweetheart") agreement will generate total expected revenues of about One Billion US Dollars (US$996,150,000 without market growth). This situation demands competitive tendering. The reasoning detailed above does not reflect immoderate or bad behavior by Verisign, a corporation richly rewarded with repeat non-bid contracts as the "authoritative directory" and "exclusive registry" of all .NET and .COM domain names. During the six-year period of this agreement however, in my opinion, Verisign damaged the .NET and .COM brands, eroding ownership rights with poorly managed operations regarding transliterations of .NET and .COM into multiple languages. ICANN was involved in this process. In 2012 Verisign applied to ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, for so-called gTLD internationalized domain name transliterations of .com and .net in assorted major languages. There's been many billions of dollars invested in existing .com and .net domains, so Verisign and ICANN needed to avoid controversy and the threat this process would erode ownership rights or seriously confuse the market. International domain names (IDN) can be convenient for end-users typically operating in non-English scripts such as Cyrillic, Chinese, Arabic or Hindi, relieving the need to toggle between different text-input keyboards. ICANN oversaw expansion of the gTLD system. ICANN accepted Verisign's applications for transliterations of .com and .net in assorted major languages although Verisign had only temporary time-limited contracts as the "authoritative directory" and "exclusive registry" of all .NET and .COM domain names. Verisign's policy on IDN.IDN implementation, and the rights protection format they proposed to follow, was very explicit, with a key objective: "Avoid costs to consumers and businesses from purely defensive registrations in the new gTLDs." They asserted: "A registrant in one of the IDN TLDs, or a registrant of an IDN.com or IDN.net, will have the sole right, but not be required to register the exact same second level name across all or any of our IDN TLDs, including the .com or .net TLDs as applicable." With this widely publicized explanation, Verisign avoided opposition by .net and .com owners against Verisign's planned offerings. Some of us registered IDN.net and IDN.com domains expecting our positions would be securely protected by Verisign. Instead, Verisign launched the first of the transliterations (also termed "aliasing"), largely unconnected to existing .com ownership, although a Priority Access Program allowed existing registrants early purchase of Verisign's transliteration, typically at premium pricing. It is unclear if changes in plan were initiated by Verisign or ICANN, but both now squeeze added revenues from resulting format changes. Ultimately, if I owned lawyer.com -- another person might buy lawyer.コム (or lawyer .ком with Japanese or Russian ".com" and pronounced nearly identically). Defensive registrations are costly, with both Verisign & ICANN reaping benefits from what now appears a collusive relationship undercutting ownership rights in .NET and .COM domain names. This was wholly different from Verisign's long-time presentation: (Verisign quoted below until 'end quote' mention) "In 2012, Verisign applied to operate registries for eight transliterations of .COM and three of .NET (to the right of the dot) as part of ICANN’s new generic top-level domain (gTLD) which will allow Verisign to bring businesses full domain names in local language characters. Verisign’s proposed approach for these new IDN gTLDs will help ensure a ubiquitous end-user experience and helps to protect consumers and business from having to register purely defensive domain names in our TLDs. In practice, Verisign’s proposed approach means that the registrant for a second-level domain name in our IDN.IDN, IDN.com or IDN.net will have the sole right (subject to applicable rights protection mechanisms), but not be required to register that identical second-level domain in any of the top-level IDNs, .COM or .NET as applicable. In order to illustrate our approach, we have identified two use cases below: Use Case No. 1: Bob Smith already has a registration for an IDN.net second level domain name. That second level domain name will be unavailable in all of the new .NET TLDs except to Bob Smith. Bob Smith may choose not to register that second level domain name in any of the new transliterations of the .NET TLDs. Use Case No. 2: John Doe does not have a registration for an IDN.com second level domain name. John Doe registers a second level domain name in our Thai transliteration of .COM but in no other TLD. That second level domain name will be unavailable in all other transliterations of .COM IDN TLDs and in the .COM registry unless and until John Doe (and only John Doe) registers it in another .COM IDN TLD or in the .COM registry" (end quote) Verisign effectively precluded much opposition to their applications. Such outcry would have been certain, because using similar-sounding and identical-meaning tlds seriously dilutes domain-owner rights, and can lead to confusion. Verisign & ICANN's new approach harms existing .com & .net domain owners. Now we are forced to try to protect our position with defensive registrations of their new .IDN domains. With Verisign's premium pricing, a single gTLD registration may cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Those defensive-registration revenues mostly benefit Verisign, but ICANN also receives a fixed component of each registration's revenues. We understand that over many years, conditions and strategies and markets may change. We can assume the expansive proprietary assertions of Verisign were always well-meant, and later changes were always legal. In the interest of all parties, standard business practices today avoid monopoly contracts without open tender. Both the .NET & .COM Registry Monopolies should be open to competitive tender. A billion reasons shout why this contract should be open to bid. Dr. Bruce Henry Lambert Helpnet Stockholm, Sweden lambert(a)ieee.org

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[Comments-net-renewal-20apr17] .net registry agreement
by Donna Mahony May 24, 2017

May 24, 2017

As others before me have stated, there is no reason for .net prices to continue to raise. Do your job keeping the industry going in the right direction instead of worrying about how you'll raise your own huge salaries again. Dona Mahony

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[Comments-net-renewal-20apr17] Proposed Renewal of .NET Registry Agreement
by Pat Quinn May 24, 2017

May 24, 2017

I concur completely with the position so eloquently stated by Mr. Kirikos. Allowing a 10% annual increase of these fees amounts to something more akin to ICANN-endorsed vigorish than anything remotely resembling 'stewardship.' Another anti-competitive money-grab by ICANN and registrars. And this on the heels of the recent NTLD debacle. It is truly time for anti-trust intervention. Patrick Quinn

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