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

[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by Jose Humberto Oliveros Magaña April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

I am a .org registrant (non-profit). 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? Humberto Oliveros

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by Luc des Trois Maisons April 28, 2019

April 28, 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.

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Price Increases on .org domains should be capped
by Tsai Patrick April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

Hi, I firmly believe that .org domains, and in fact all legacy TLDs such as .com, .org, .info, and .biz should have price increases capped, if not at the current 10% year over year increase, then perhaps at inflation rates much like rent-controlled San Francisco buildings. For sake of the .org Registry Renewal Agreement, I would like the current 10% price increase cap to remain the same and NOT be taken out of the renewal agreement. The .org domain in particular is a resource for nonprofits around the world involved in humanitarian efforts, ecological preservation, and social advancement. With so many efforts to help nonprofits achieve their goals, why should potentially massive increases in renewal fees affect them? It is easy to say that such price increases won't happen because of various reasons, but if the guarantee is not there, someone will make the decision to extract profits and will inevitably lead to the downfall of the Internet brand of so many nonprofits. It's not just their website that would stop loading. Emails would stop working, which would be disastrous. I am a fan of the free market, but given that there is only one .org registrar, there needs to be a check in place here. Otherwise this will turn out to be another Martin Shkreli moment. Thanks for your time! Patrick

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] .org renewal
by Sawyer Hill April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

The removal of the price cap on the .org domain allows toxic rent seeking behavior that has not been effectively protected against

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

April 28, 2019

Dear ICANN, As a .org registrant, I'm oppose to the elimination of price cap on .org domains. This is simply unfair for registrants who are not-for-profits or non-profits. Nat Cohen gives some obvious and good explanations as to why in this post: http://www.circleid.com/posts/20190423_spurious_justifications_for_eliminat… Cheers, Thomas Mansencal - colour-science.org <https://www.colour-science.org> - thomasmansencal.com <http://www.thomasmansencal.com>

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

April 28, 2019

I am a .org 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] .org domain renewal
by Roshan George April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

Hello, Please retain the existing rules for .org handling. The existing rules have been set up very well and the mechanisms we have to ensure trademarks aren't violated are very reasonable. A jump in prices will harm developing-world organizations. And a jump in prices is guaranteed given that a single provider will be in charge of the register. Please also consider that organisations like Verisign are meant to provide a service to us by handling the DNS for these TLDs. They do not own the namespace. They serve the namespace. And they should not own the namespace.

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Please do not eliminate price caps on .org and legacy domains
by Eckley Keach April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

To quote Rep. Derrel Fincher, "[a]s described, the Pricing for Domain Name Registrations and Registry Services (Section 2.10 of the .org renewal agreement) indicates that there will be no regulation of price, but there is only one Registry Operator. That constitutes a monopoly, and it will be seen and lobbied against as such. There is a reason monopolies are regulated; please consider doing so here to contain prices." Thank you.

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Don't get rid of your price caps
by Rashad Farrakhan April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

Title says it all. Don't let greed win like always. Be a decent company.

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

April 28, 2019

I am a .org 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?

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