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

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

April 26, 2019

Dear ICANN, I am concerned citizen who believes that increasing the prices of .org .info or .biz domains will negatively impact many 501c3s or non-profit organizations and start up organizations with low net gross profits. These organizations play such an important role and operate on limited budgets. Please DO NOT implement either of the proposed changes which remove the price cap provisions (Section 2.10 of the .org renewal agreement) and increase the base registry fixed fee (Section 6.1 of the .org renewal agreement). Thank you, Mandy Rodrigues

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Opposing removal of price caps for .org/.info/.biz gTLDs
by Bernhard Egger April 26, 2019

April 26, 2019

To whom it may concern, I am and have been a domain name registrant for almost two decades now and strongly oppose the removal of any price cap on .org, .info, and .biz domains. 1) Unrestricted prices hurt private and and small organizations If ICANN's goal is to allow only the big players on the Internet, removing the price cap is the way to go. This is, however, not the mission of ICANN. Quote from https://www.icann.org/get-started "ICANN is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable." 2) No justification for removing the price cap Without a cost analysis it is impossible to judge the necessity of this change. I do not see any valid reason why suddently the allowed 10% increase per year cannot cover the cost of operation. In fact, if at all the prices should probably be lowered. The whole things sounds like a money-grab by ICANN and associates. 3) Ignoring the ICANN Working Group Did ICANN respect the findings and results of the working group that is currently reviewing this issue? Probably not since their work is not over yet. Why the sudden, undemocratic, and unilateral rush? Again: I strongly oppose the removal of any price cap on .org, .info, and .biz domains. Thanks, Bernhard Egger

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] ICANN .org Comment
by Ryan Steuer April 26, 2019

April 26, 2019

I am against allowing PIR to set their own pricing. Gradual increases in prices happen and can be planned for as ICANN has allowed in the past, but if an organization can create any pricing they want, it can be detrimental to the nonprofit field. Nonprofits consist of large nonprofits with millions of dollars in their budget to smaller nonprofits with 1-4 employees that may not be able to sustain a higher cost. The disparity of sizes of nonprofits makes this a troubling endeavor.

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] No Increases!
by Nebi Cem Erdogan April 26, 2019

April 26, 2019

Do not remove the caps on .ORG domain renewals. -- Sincerely yours, Nebi Cem Erdogan

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Maintain Price Caps
by Jeremy Payne April 26, 2019

April 26, 2019

There is no "public benefit" justification to removing the safeguards in place regarding .org registration price increases. The removal of such protection is just a handout to business at the expense of registrants’ rights and protections. -- Jeremy Payne Technology Director Covert Public Schools

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

April 26, 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] Comments on Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by LGDOR April 26, 2019

April 26, 2019

To whom it may concern, I am president of LGDOR Inc. a non-profit entity in the Leominster, MA area. This comment pertains to the section called "Pricing for Domain Name Registrations and Registry Services (Section 2.10 of the .org renewal agreement)." Many nonprofits like ourselves work to create and produce more software programmers (we run a free coding academy in Leominster) and many nonprofits like ourselves work to provide free incubation services for new software/web-based companies. Many companies like us also provide free tools to improve our community and society. We operate in a voluntary manner and operate with extremely limited budgets (a single grant) to cover administration and overhead costs. Much of our recurring costs are associated with hosting platforms. An increase to this cost will use up our funding quicker and cut the length of time we can continue our service. Therefore, we disagree with removing the cap on domain name registrations and registry services for the .org domain. Since the .org domain should only be associated with nonprofits, it should be a refuge from companies seeking profit and market exploitation. This includes the registry itself. The retention of a cap is appropriate and probably necessary. Non-profit companies have to deal with fewer and fewer low cost options to carry out operations as more and more vendors look to exploit non-profits as new market areas and more profit. As such, non-profit services can't afford to operate and many will simply go away. It's simply getting too expensive to operate. Finally, the registries should consider companies like ours as assets and provide even lower cost services. Why? Because many of us work to make new programmers, new companies, and new support tools. The internet is the main tool for the benefactors of our services. It is not logical to increase the costs of such services. We work to grow the size of your market. Our folks, services, and tools might start out operating in the .org domain, but they move to .com. Trent Larson, President LGDOR, Inc.

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Keep 10%/year limit for .org domains!
by MRPC Webmaster April 26, 2019

April 26, 2019

I'm the webmaster for our small church, and our website is an important piece of how we let others know we exist, as we don't own a physical building. Allowing PIR to set whatever prices it wants on .org domains may prevent us from being able to have a website and reasonable email addresses. We are an organization, and yet we don't have tons of money. Please keep the 10%/year limit in place! Thanks, Joel Wallace ManhattanReformed.org Webmaster

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Please don't allow massive .org domain price increases!
by Midwest CY Webmaster April 26, 2019

April 26, 2019

I'm the webmaster for a regional youth group that is non-profit and very low budget. We use a .org site to display information as well as manage retreat registration for youth across several different states - increasing the cost of the .org domain names (or allowing PIR to set whatever prices it wants) could prevent us from being able to have a website with a reasonable address (as we are an organization, after all). Please keep the 10%/year limit in place! Thanks, Joel Wallace MidwestCY.org Webmaster

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

April 26, 2019

Dear ICANN, As I am using a .org domain name for personal use (personal email and personal website), I am very concerned about the possibility of it becoming unaffordable. 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. With best regards, Guillaume Gaullier https://www.gaullier.org/en/about

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