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

Re: [Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] proposed .org management contract renewal
by Richard Hohm April 25, 2019

April 25, 2019

I am writing today to express my strong objection to the proposed PIR contract renewal as it currently stands. In principle, I have no problem with lifting price caps on domain registry. In this specific case, however, the Public Interest Registry organization holds a monopoly on .org registrations. If the pricing restraints on this company were lifted, history strongly suggests that their registration fees would increase substantially, possibly to an extreme degree. Those of us holding .org domains might well be forced to choose between paying prohibitive fees, or giving up years of accumulated name recognition and goodwill in moving to another TLD. I am not as alarmed as I would be, were PIR a for-profit company. My quick read of the proposal, however, found nothing to prevent PIR from reorganizing as for-profit, and they would have considerable incentive to do so. Regardless, history has proven that unregulated monopolies of any sort invariably end up serving their own interests rather than those of the public. As a hobbyist with several .org domains and who manages a .org website for a not-for-profit organization, I am concerned that the proposed contract will trigger what I assume are unintended side effects that would make it difficult or impossible for us to continue to hold these domains. I believe the best way forward is to continue to place a ceiling on registration fees. Failing this, I offer a modification to the proposal: Remove price caps on .org if you must, but at the same time open the TLD to allow multiple organizations to share its management and charge fees for registrations. Competition would then keep fees down to a reasonable level. A model for this modality could be found in the way USA power companies sell electric power individually to consumers, with the electricity from each delivered over a common power line grid. Thank you for your attention and consideration.

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Price increase on org domains.
by David Francoeur April 25, 2019

April 25, 2019

Keeping the prices low is really important to keep the web accessible. Thanks, David

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by Cecilia Einloth April 25, 2019

April 25, 2019

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .info Registry Agreement
by Clint Evans April 25, 2019

April 25, 2019

ICANN does not seem to recognize the difference between a legacy extension created with the support of the US government, that predates the existence of ICANN and that has millions of existing users and the brand new extensions that started off with a new set of rules, in particular no price controls, and no existing registrants. They have completely different characteristics, history, and ownership structure. It is not acceptable for ICANN to ignore these differences and to propose that they be treated the same. Removing price caps is not fair to .info domain owners. Many of them have websites that they have used for years. If price caps are removed, the cost to renew their domain names may become too expensive, and they could be forced to give up websites that are important to them. The Uniform Rapid Suspension policy is too new and untested to apply on domain names that may be 10 years old or more. With the URS, the domain names could be taken down in a matter of days with little notice. ICANN should be doing more to protect owners of .info domain names. Why is ICANN trying to remove price protections for .info domain owners, so that they can be overcharged for their domain names? -- Clint Evans (512) 827-9491 - Featured on Entrepreneur, Forbes, Huffington Post, ReadWrite, ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and more - Business.com Expert Contributor - CNN Contributor - #1 Amazon Best-Selling Author

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Re: [Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .biz Registry Agreement
by Clint Evans April 25, 2019

April 25, 2019

> > ICANN does not seem to recognize the difference between a legacy extension > created with the support of the US government, that predates the existence > of ICANN and that has millions of existing users and the brand new > extensions that started off with a new set of rules, in particular no price > controls, and no existing registrants. They have completely different > characteristics, history, and ownership structure. It is not acceptable for > ICANN to ignore these differences and to propose that they be treated the > same. > > Removing price caps is not fair to .biz domain owners. Many of them have > websites that they have used for years. If price caps are removed, the cost > to renew their domain names may become too expensive, and they could be > forced to give up websites that are important to them. > > The Uniform Rapid Suspension policy is too new and untested to apply on > domain names that may be 10 years old or more. With the URS, the domain > names could be taken down in a matter of days with little notice. > > ICANN should be doing more to protect owners of .biz domain names. Why is > ICANN trying to remove price protections for .biz domain owners, so that > they can be overcharged for their domain names? > > -- > > Clint Evans > (512) 827-9491 > - Featured on Entrepreneur, Forbes, Huffington Post, ReadWrite, > ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and more > - Business.com Expert Contributor > - CNN Contributor > - #1 Amazon Best-Selling Author > -- Clint Evans (512) 827-9491 - Featured on Entrepreneur, Forbes, Huffington Post, ReadWrite, ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and more - Business.com Expert Contributor - CNN Contributor - #1 Amazon Best-Selling Author

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by Riad S. Wahby April 25, 2019

April 25, 2019

I am a .org registrant (not-for-profit). With the proposed policy changes for .org domains, ICANN is failing to recognize the difference between a legacy extension created with the support of the US government---which predates the existence of ICANN and that has millions of existing users---and brand-new extensions that started off with a new set of rules, no price controls, and no existing registrants. Legacy TLDs have completely different characteristics, history, and ownership structure. It is not acceptable for ICANN to ignore these differences and to propose that they be treated the same. Removing price caps is not fair to .org domain owners. Many of them have websites that they have used for years. If price caps are removed, the cost to renew their domain names may become too expensive, and they could be forced to give up websites that are important to them. This would likely have the effect of destroying important parts of the World Wide Web's history. What would happen, for example, if archive.org were priced out of their domain? This would be an unequivocal disaster, the responsibility for which would fall squarely on ICANN. The Uniform Rapid Suspension policy is too new and untested to apply on domain names that may be 20 years old or more. With the URS, the domain names could be taken down in a matter of days with little notice. ICANN should be doing more to protect owners of .org domain names. Why is ICANN trying to remove price protections for .org domain owners---many of which are non- or not-for-profits? Please do not break the .org registry. This would be a huge, unrecoverable mistake. Best regards, -=rsw

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by Jaryd Malbin April 25, 2019

April 25, 2019

I am a .org 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. sent from mobile

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] .org pricing
by Bill Segall April 25, 2019

April 25, 2019

Please don't allow price gouging for .org domains. There are literally millions of not for profit organisations for whom even the smallest expense is a burden, many of them doing great work. Thanks, Bill.

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Revisions to .org TLD agreement
by Matthew Geiger April 25, 2019

April 25, 2019

I am a .org domain registrant and assist in the operations of non-profit organizations with .org domains. 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. Short-cutting policy practices to the exclusion of stakeholder groups is a truly bad look for an organization with a public mission. 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, many registrants of legacy TLDs registered their names and made their online presence on legacy TLDs on the basis or assumption that price caps would ensure some level of stability in their costs. 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. Regards, Matthew Geiger

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] I oppose the removal of the price cap on the .org TLD
by Jon Schmidt April 25, 2019

April 25, 2019

This appears to fundamentally go against the intended purpose of the .org TLD, that being domains used by non-profits. Non-profits play an important role in our society, and I would much rather see them spend their limited resources on the services they provide than paying domain registration fees. Please do not remove the price cap! Jon Schmidt

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