April 2019 - comments-org-renewal-18mar19@icann.org

[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Objection to Transformation of Org Registry from being NPO Centric to Profit Centered
by Jeff Libert April 29, 2019

April 29, 2019

Dear Sirs and Mesdames: Please note my strong objection to the new registry operator's desire to transform the "PUBLIC INTEREST registry" into the "THEIR PRIVATE PROFIT registry". New gTLDs are NOT the same as incumbent TLDs and should not be treated as "one in the same". Organizations have built their Web presence around the idea that .Org stood for something. The registry organization - PIR.org itself - helped to build that reputation and build the acceptance of the .Org domain around certain ideas - including what the domain AND the registry stood for. .Org IS a brand. That brand has LONG been PUBLIC INTEREST focused. The new management of the PIR - posturing that newly realized PROFITS from raising prices in an unrestrained manner will somehow enhance .Org's already established brand is masking an utterly self-serving argument as a public service. It's nonsense. It should be utterly rejected. Two+ decades of .Org, operating as a uniquely "public interest" registry, MUST stand for something. There must be some space, in the domain space, that stands for something other than self-interest and profit motive. ICANN, you have handed the domain "industry" and the "domain industrialists" the keys to the gTLD factory - enabling "unlimited" NEW gTLDs. Isn't that enough opportunity for those whose motive is to pursue profit? "Squeezing the tenants" of .Org for greater RENTS is exactly what the new PIR management seeks to do. Unlike apartment tenants, however, "moving out" to a new WWW address" is hardly feasible and likely greatly expensive. You, ICANN, might (not) so easily move to a new building "down the street" if your landlord upped the rents of the building your were operating out of. Not so for the millions of .Org "tenants". How utterly CLEVER for new management to take over millions of apartment "buildings" where the tenants - faced with unlimited rent increases - can only "move out" at great cost of re-branding, re-positioning, re-SEOing, re-indexing, technically restructing, their existing organizational Web identities. . Please respect, honor and do not destroy this beautiful piece of the architecture of the worldwide web. . Org's historical significance and historical value AND ESTABLISHED OPERATIONAL VALUES should be and must be preserved. Respectfully,Jeffrey A. Libert, Esq.

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Org renewal
by Carl Zulauf April 29, 2019

April 29, 2019

Allowing a single for-profit company complete control over the domains of virtually all non-profits is already a bad policy. Removing the price caps would be worse still. The costs associated with operating a TLD have gone down over time, not up. The price caps should remain and be lowered. Don't allow exploitation of non-profits.

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by Domainlogist April 29, 2019

April 29, 2019

I am a domain name registrant. ICANN staff should not unilaterally impose URS in legacy TLDs when that issue is precisely what is being examined by the volunteer ICANN Working Group who has been mandated to review this issue. ICANN policy making is supposed to be a ‘bottom up, multi-stakeholder model’. I believe that legacy gTLDs are fundamentally different from for-profit new gTLDs. Legacy TLDs are essentially a public trust, unlike new gTLDs which were created, bought and paid for by private interests. Registrants of legacy TLDs are entitled to price stability and predictability, and should not be subject to price increases with no maximums. Unlike new gTLDs, registrants of legacy TLDs registered their names and made their online presence on legacy TLDs on the basis that price caps would continue to exist. Unrestrained price increases on the millions of .org registrants who are not-for-profits or non-profits would be unfair to them. Unchecked price increases have the potential to result in hundreds of millions of dollars being transferred from these organizations to one non-profit, the Internet Society, with .org registrants receiving no benefit in return. ICANN should not allow one non-profit nearly unlimited access to the funds of other non-profits. ICANN appears to be entirely catering to registries by removing price caps. ICANN should stand up for the public interest and registrants! Sent from my iPhone

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by Stack Overlap April 29, 2019

April 29, 2019

I am a .org registrant, as are many of my customers. I am opposed to treating one of the oldest TLDs with the rules of newer TLDs. I have always viewed .org, along with .biz and .info, as one of the foundational TLDs, which requires a level of stability if organizations are meant to take it seriously. I will no longer be able to advise clients on .org usage if it starts using pricing models that the newer registries use. There are already many registries with low registration fees but 2-3x higher renewal rates. And then there are "premium" names that cost hundreds per year forever. My clients typically stay away from them. Please reconsider introducing these pricing models to .ORG. It will cause my clients a lot of frustration. Sincerely, Jim Patterson Stack Overlap Corporate corporate(a)stackoverlap.com (318) 300-3045

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Comment re .ORG registry renewal from John Poole, DomainMondo.com
by John Poole April 29, 2019

April 29, 2019

Comment re .ORG registry renewal from John Poole, DomainMondo.com, is attached (pdf).

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] .ORG Domain Price Cap Removal
by Jarrod Morgan April 29, 2019

April 29, 2019

Hello, I have always been a fan of the .org domains as I feel it is the easiest way to suggest that your website is not looking for profit. I realize that there is no technical reason behind this but I know by talking to people that psychologically .ORG domains let people know this. By removing this price cap you open up the possibility for registrars to charge obscene prices to renew domains people have used for years. If people do not want to or can't pay this obscene fee they lose the easiest way for people to find their website. This is directly typing in the websites address. Without the same address old users or visitors might never find the site again especially with the ocean that is search engines (eg. Google).

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] .org comments
by Marianne Clemmens April 29, 2019

April 29, 2019

We are a small non-profit water seasonal company with 44 members using a .org domain name. It is important to keep our costs affordable. Please consider not letting PIR setting whatever price it wants. Marianne Clemmens Secretary B&W non-profit

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by tess＠mediaoptions.com April 29, 2019

April 29, 2019

I am a domain name registrant. I've read about a lot of bad decisions under the UDRP. The URS seems even worse. I heard the URS is very new and is being reviewed now to see if it is working properly. It is too soon to include an untested policy on .org domains where for a few hundred dollars anyone could try to shut down someone else's website. Telling the .org registry that it can charge any price it wants for renewing a domain name is a terrible idea. Why would you allow them to set a crazy high price? They could try to force the domain owners to pay a very high price each year to renew their domain name, and if the domain owner either won't or can't, then the .org registry could take away their domain name, set a high registration price on it, and then try to find someone else who is willing to pay a high price for it. This is very unfair to long time .org domain owners who may see their prices raised sky high for no reason. You let the new domain extensions charge any price they want, but that hasn't gone so well. Lots of people got burned when the new registries offered low rates for the first year, and then after people registered the domain names and some built web sites on them, some of the prices were raised through the roof. .Org has been working just fine for decades where the prices maybe go up a little bit each year. Allowing huge price increases from one year to the next could ruin .org for everybody. I think you should pay a little more attention to what is good for the owners of .org domain names. The registries are doing fine. They don't need your help as they are already making plenty of money. Tess Diaz tess(a)mediaoptions.com Biz Dev | MediaOptions.com Executive Producer | DomainSherpa.com Phoenix, AZ USA Tel: +1 602-391-6732 USA FAX: +1 786-364-7310

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Price increases
by Njuguna Macharia April 29, 2019

April 29, 2019

We as a organization are saddened to learn of the proposed price increases. We are not for profit which means our finance comes through donations. The price increases no matter how small it might be will affect our budget. We are opposed to this proposal of price increases. Rev. Dominic macharia IPhone

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Public Interest Registry
by Theatre Group April 29, 2019

April 29, 2019

The complete removal of price cap provisions in the current .org agreement could have a severe negative impact on those of us trying to maintain a presence on the internet for our small non-profit corporations. It is my understanding that the Public Interest Registry is also a non-profit, so why bestow on it the opportunity to run amuck and charge anything at all?! If the Public Interest Registry is in financial trouble that is a different story. One which might be mitigated by a gradual increase of 1% per year above the base of the current 10%. Sincerely, Yolanda Day Producer/Director Rio Grande Players, Inc. Albuquerque, NM -- Visit us at: www.riograndeplayers.org

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