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

[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Don't increase the price. It will kill small businesses
by Luca Tom April 26, 2019

April 26, 2019

Don't increase the price. It will kill small businesses

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by Christoph Sax April 26, 2019

April 26, 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] I object to the changes to section 2.10, - price caps
by John Stoffel April 26, 2019

April 26, 2019

Hi, As a long time owner of a .org registration for the stoffel.org domain, I strongly object to the removal of price controls on the .org domain because of the complete lack of competition in the .org domain. Only one registrar is allowed to register names, so if they can jack up the price on my domain, my only option is to drop 23+ years of my domain and move to somewhere else, such as stoffel.info or stoffel.top or some other useless top level domain. Now if you were going to have multiple independent top level .org registrars, who competed for my business, then I would be more than happy to have you remove the price cap, but even then I would be worried about a cartel being formed and the prices going up without any limits. Just because there are multiple top level domains, does not mean that there is meaningful competition. For example, what if verisign decided to raise the price of the icann.org domain to $10 million per year? What would stop them from doing this? They could simply say there are other cheaper top level domains you could use, such as icann.top, or icann.info? What is so hard about moving to that new domain? It's not like icann.org is actually valuable because you can move to another top level domain without any problems. This is why ICANN needs to keep the price controls on the top level .org domain in place for the foreseeable future. Domains are known by "name.tld", not just by "name". Thank you for your consideration. John Stoffel john(a)stoffel.org

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Please add a cap to pricing
by Chuck Burt April 26, 2019

April 26, 2019

Please continue to cap wholesale pricing rates. Thank you.

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] The beginning of the end
by Kim-andre Nikolaisen April 26, 2019

April 26, 2019

There is really no competetive reason anymore to use .org. It was relevant back when you mainly chose between .org, .com and your local domain extension. However if they should choose to increase prices for .org i expect most people would migrate to another extension, hence they would ultimately loose business. So by all means, increase your prices, but people will simply migrate to another domain extension if prices are increased. Kim

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Opposing elimination of price inflation control
by Phill Wolf April 26, 2019

April 26, 2019

Organizations, even small and impecunious ones, are a credit to the internet and a benefit to society. Yet they owe their continued independent existence increasingly to their website domain name. Their own domain name is their only assurance of editorial and fund-raising freedom and control over the monetization or privacy of their visitors. These domains should be as close to free-of-charge as can be. The old .org price inflation regulation was not perfect but removing it altogether could subject socially-useful, harmless, and unprofitable websites, and by extension their noble but shallow-pocketed operators, to rents beyond their means, to the detriment of the internet as a whole.

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] comments-org-renewal
by Uzay Sezen April 26, 2019

April 26, 2019

To ICANN: I am a .org registrant (not-for-profit). Removal of .org registration cap is detrimental to many non-profit/charity projects. Simply with unaffordable prices many websites will be forced to shut down. Who came up with this most terrible disruptive idea? The proposal is fundamentally undemocratic, unegalitarian and hugely backwards move against public interest. The .org is a legacy extension that predates ICANN created by US government. Since its creation the .org has built arguably the most beneficial “soul” component of the internet for the world citizens. The .org is special in its meaning and purpose among the global community. Removal of price cap on .org will lead to runaway price increases which is unfair to millions of brilliant volunteer projects that strive to make our world a better place. There’s no defendable justification in ICANN’s unilateral top-down proposal. ICANN must protect .org by maintaining a price stability and not serve for the interest of for-profit registries and businesses. Respectfully, Uzay Sezen NatureDocumentaries.org

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Objection to Removal of Price Cap on .org Domains
by Ian Austin April 26, 2019

April 26, 2019

We comment as a .org website domain owner to strongly object to the removal of the price cap on .org suffix domains and fully join with supporting those who have already clearly expressed their objection to these proposals by ICANN. As a local not-for-profit, and aspiring to become a charity, our choir has deliberately recently adopted a '.org' domain for its website and e-communications because we believed it correctly represented us a group, rather than .com, .co.uk, .biz, or other domain name suffixes which may confer a corporate or commercial overtone. We raise, at present, modest sums for charitable causes. Other .org holders are, through their longer existence, better able to generate significant sums for deserving causes through their own activities. It is with absolute dismay we find that for the priviledge of having a domain suffix consistent with our own aims, we may be asked to pay fees significantly higher than we currently pay, and which can be funded only from our own not-for-profit resources. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] .org domain price
by Juan Ignacio April 26, 2019

April 26, 2019

This is outrageous. I can understand (but don't support) raising prices for commercial comains, but .org domains prices should go DOWN not up. I'm a web developer and work with many NGOs and for many of them, becuase of the currency exchange getting a .org is very expensive and they should use their funds to help people, not for others to profit.

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Please maintain the 10% cap on .org domain price increases
by Ryan Freebern April 26, 2019

April 26, 2019

As an individual owner of .org domains that aren't being used for profit for over 20 years, I would like to continue to maintain my domains without being faced with undue financial burden. Please maintain the 10% annual cap on .org domain price increases. Thank you, Ryan Freebern Richmond, VT, USA

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