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

[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by Andrew Roth April 28, 2019

April 28, 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] STOP the price increase of domain names.
by mkv22＠cantab.net April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

Please do "not" remove the cap on the pricing of the domains.

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by Zach Zeman April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

I am a domain name registrant. The .org domain should not operate the same as newer TLDs that have been created expressly for business. Organizations, especially not-for-profit organization, have just as much right to exist on the internet as businesses. 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. 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? Thanks. -Zach

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by Maxime Lapointe April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

I am a domain name registrant. Legacy gTLDs are fundamentally different from for-profit new gTLDs and should be treated that way. Legacy TLDs are what the internet was built on. They are essentially a public trust. They are very different than new gTLDs which were created, bought and paid for by private parties. Registrants of these legacy extensions should be entitled to price predictability & stability. Advancements in technology should be driving the cost of operating a registry down, yet prices keep going up? Removing price caps is unfair to the millions of domain registrants. They will have no price protections. Every registrant will be at the complete mercy and whims of the registry. This could result in a transfer of funds from millions of non-profits to one non-profit, with no benefits to the domain registrants. ICANN is supposed to represent a "bottom up, consensus-driven multistakeholder model". ICANN 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 should be looking out for the .org registrants, in particular the non-profits. There is no "public benefit" justification to these changes. It is just a handout to business at the expense of registrants’ rights and protections. Where are the protections for the millions of domain registrants that this could effect in a negative way? These changes would give way too much power to the registry. This is not acceptable for a "public benefit" organization that exists to represent many stakeholders.

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Please Reconsider Deregulation of .org Pricing
by Andy Monroe April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

To whom it may concern, Please reconsider the current plan for deregulation of .org domain pricing. This plan (apparently) aims to implement free-market deregulation philosophy into an *inherently non-free market.* If you would like to deregulate pricing of heavily-used domain name extensions such as .org, then you must also open .org registry services to market competition. If this cannot be done, price protections should remain. *The current proposal not only allows, but in effect encourages exploitative market practices*. The .org extension has massive use and recognition across the internet and has immense value as a result. By allowing Public Interest Registry (PIR) a total monopoly and sudden price deregulation, ICANN incentives PIR to heavily ramp up prices on consumers that may not even know to see it coming. Although the market will eventually react to this change, the effects essentially constitute a painful and chaotic renegotiation of pricing and domain name extension selection, without actual visible benefit to anyone other than PIR. Thank you for your time, and I hope this was instructive. Best, Andy

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by Nikhil Wadekar April 28, 2019

April 28, 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] Comment: Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by Kage April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

Hello, I wish to voice my strong disagreement with the proposal to remove the price cap on .org domains. This TLD is often used by non- and not-for-profit organizations, be they officially-registered 501(c)(3) organizations or not, and they usually do not have much for an annual budget. By allowing the price cap to be removed, the cost increase will undoubtedly be passed on to the domain owners, many of whom may be in a vulnerable financial state. This may include organizations that fight for civil liberties of marginalized groups, low-budget activism blogs, or those that simply wish to educate others -- like our own organization. ICANN itself would also be affected. With .info and .biz domains, an argument could be made for lifting the cap due to the typical use-case for those domains and the subsequent potential revenue stream their owners may have to spend. But this most certainly is not true for .org domains. Many of these domains, if not most of them, have no revenue stream whatsoever and, as such, cannot budget for much more than what the current 10% limit allows for. I strongly urge you to reconsider your proposal and *do not remove the 10% limit*. Thank you for your consideration. --- *Kage* HackThisSite.org Manager https://www.hackthissite.org

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Oppose Changes to .org Renewal Agreement
by Taylor Clark April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

I'm writing in opposition to the changes to Public Interest Registry (PIR) renewal agreement for the .org TLD. I appreciate the effort PIR has put into being a good steward of the .org domain, and perhaps it's their great work that has made .org into one of the few "core" TLDs. It's because of this "core" status that it makes no sense to give one company complete ownership over this TLD. It would be like handing a company a monopoly over a resource, why would that ever be a good thing? To be more exact, many non-profits rely on the .org domain and to allow an unlimited raising of rates could be a bad thing for many beneficial groups. If PIR wants to own a TLD, why not make them go through the same process as the other companies? They could create .organization or anything else they'd like without needing to hurt the .org legacy. Thank you for considering my comments.

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Price Cap
by TOMCC Admin and Memberships April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

Hi. The Triumph Owners' Motor Cycle Club is a not-for-profit international organisation that has invested a considerable amount of time from its volunteers to build up the reputation and visibility of the tomcc.org domain worldwide. As a not-for-profit organisation we can't afford the potentially substantial increases in domain name costs if the existing price cap were to be removed. If the price cap were to be removed and the domain name prices increase substantially then we would be forced to switch to a different domain name at the cost of all the time and effort our volunteers have put in. We are not a commercial company and only operate to bring likeminded individuals together on behalf of our Members through the hard work of unpaid volunteers. We specifically chose tomcc.org because we were (and still are) a worldwide not-for-profit organisation. We feel that the price cap is fair and just, and allows not-for-profit organisations to gain much needed traction on the internet which would otherwise be swamped by large commercial companies who can afford to buy up tranches of domain names. The internet should be for everyone, not for those who have the most money to spend. Regards, Laurence Mee TOMCC Webmaster / Vice President

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Irony: ICANN Can't Make a Valid Form
by Jeremy Walker April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

Hey Guys, Your comment submission form doesn't work; you click "Continue" and nothing happens. As a developer I was able to check the console for errors and saw: mail_form:18 Mixed Content: The page at ' https://www.icann.org/public-comments/org-renewal-2019-03-18-en/mail_form' was loaded over a secure connection, but contains a form that targets an insecure endpoint 'mailto:comments-org-renewal-18mar19@icann.org'. This endpoint should be made available over a secure connection. I normally wouldn't say this but ... c'mon, you guys are ICANN! You should understand the difference between (and issues with mixing) HTTP and HTTPS. And you definitely should test your own forms with a modern browser like Chrome. Sincerely, Jeremy Walker P.S. The reason I came to the form in the first place was to say that raising the prices on TLDs is a horrible idea that will be as bad as your idea for to let .xxx extort everyone. Probably worse: that only hurt owners of major trademarks, whereas this will hurt the entire Internet, especially the poorer users.

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