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

[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposal to eliminate price caps on .org domain names
by Glenda Wolin April 25, 2019

April 25, 2019

As a member of a small nonprofit with a website geared to keeping members and other interested parties informed about our issues and activities, I urge you not to eliminate price caps on the .org top-level domain. Many nonprofits operate on a shoestring budget while trying to benefit society. Attempting to treat the groups that use this domain the same as businesses with millions of dollars to spend is a false equivalence. We do different work for different purposes. My nonprofit exists to educate and empower people to participate in their democracy. We do this in a number of ways: We go into the community, mostly underserved areas, to register voters. We produce unbiased guides that include all candidates, no matter how minor, and have them answer identical questions about issues, so people can compare what they have to say and become educated voters. We hold candidate forums that, again, include all the candidates because we don't want someone deciding which ones are worthy of being heard by the voters and which ones are not. We do not endorse candidates or parties. We also hold forums on issues of importance to the community with expert panels discussing their areas of expertise as related to the issues. On our website, in addition to announcing what is coming up, during the state legislative session we inform our readers about upcoming legislation and provide ways for them to reach their legislators to let them know how they feel. We do all these things and more without a single paid staffer -- we are all volunteers. Our members pay dues and we do some fundraising. That's how we pay for everything we do. If our yearly domain fee skyrocketed, we might face eliminating our website. I'm not speaking just for our organization, but for many, many others, some of which surely have even less funding than we do. Nonprofits doing good works have to mean more than someone earning more money on domain names. Perhaps you can require proof of nonprofit status for .org rates that are capped at at lower rate. But please do not price small nonprofits out of the ability to have a websites. Thank you for your consideration. Glenda Wolin San Antonio, TX

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Stop increasing price
by Nasser Shalaby April 25, 2019

April 25, 2019

Stop increasing price

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Do not increase the prices
by Joel Herbert April 25, 2019

April 25, 2019

Please do not increase the prices as I may not be able to afford to renew my domain

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Org renewal - don't raise our fees!
by Mike Pasche April 25, 2019

April 25, 2019

ICANN, As an "end user" domain registrant, I request that you do not remove the price cap provisions as you are proposing. Most of the group that use .org domains are non-profits with small budgets for donation registration services. Allowing wholesalers to arbitrarily change the price of these domains could have disastrous consequences for their ability to maintain a digital presence, conduct fundraising, and communicate with our stakeholders. There is no reason that the structure for these domains has to be equivalent to that for other new top level domains. These are very different due to how long they have been around, the nature of the end users, and the fact that they were asking the original domains. Thank you for your consideration. Mike Pasche

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Please leave prices alone
by votesplitadmin April 25, 2019

April 25, 2019

As the IT manager of this and several other non-profits who use the .ORG TLD I implore you to leave pricing as it is. To remove regulation in the form of price increase caps would have a hugely detrimental effect on many organizations who already operate on a shoestring budget and have no outside funding. The stability of these prices is a main reason we use .org, .com, .info and .net domains. Leave the price caps in place, there is no upside to removing these caps. Thank you

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Do Not Approve the .Org Agreement Renewal
by Michael McFabulous April 25, 2019

April 25, 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!

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] .ORG Policy Change
by admin＠mcsully.org admin＠mcsully.org April 25, 2019

April 25, 2019

Hello, Making the .ORG TLD a money making domain makes no sense. .ORG is for non-commercial entities. I oppose lifting price caps on .org domains. Please reconsider this proposed change. Thank you. Regards, Matt Sullivan

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Comments objecting to the .org renewal
by Rene Mcintire April 25, 2019

April 25, 2019

To whom it may concern: I am a .org registrant and a not-for-profit organization. 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! As a non profit who has no overhead and donates 100% to Sarcoma Cancer Research....we can not afford to spend more dollars. Please & thank you, Rene McIntire / Team Danielle

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Do Not Approve the .Org Agreement Renewal
by Russ Guthrie April 25, 2019

April 25, 2019

I respectfully make the following comments. I am a domain name registrant. 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 .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. 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, so many of which are non-profits, so that they can be overcharged for their domain names? Russ Guthrie

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Increasing Fees Not Good
by Stephen Weaver April 25, 2019

April 25, 2019

I am the executive director for the Ross Volunteer Association. We are a non-profit organization, with the sole purpose of raising money for members of the Ross Volunteer Company at Texas A&M University. This is a student organization that has been in existence longer than any other student organization in the State of Texas. The Ross Volunteer Company is also the Honor Guard for the Governor of the State of Texas. Being a non-profit, we have a very limited ability to raise money. To significantly increase the funds necessary to continue to maintain or .org URL could be devastating to both the Ross Volunteer Association and to the Ross Volunteer Company, the student organization that we support. We have no deep pockets. We have no paid employees to the non-profit organization. We are only able to pay for a website through member donations. A significant increase in those costs may put the organization out of business. PLEASE RECONSIDER KEEPING YOUR COSTS AS LOW AS POSSIBLE FOR ORGANIZATIONS LIKE US. Steve Weaver '74 Executive Director, Ross Volunteer Association Aggie74sw(a)gmail.com<mailto:Aggie74sw@gmail.com> (214)215-7248

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