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

[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Deep concerns about lifting .org registration price cap.
by Lech Perczak April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

Hello, As current board member of Wrocław Hackerspace, I have to express a deep concern on the proposed change. hswro.org was the "home" of our organization since the very beginning, on which all our infrastructure and reputation relies. By giving up the price constraints on .org domains, renewal prices may rise sharply, as .org registry (PIR) is de facto a monopoly, and can dictate the prices. As NGOs typically have limited budget (like our local hackerspace), they may effectively be forced to change the domain, which contrary to your idea, isn't painless process, as domain name is a very important part of the organization's reputation. Rebranding is a very painful process. You suggested that Red Cross might migrate from "redcross.org" to "redcross.info". The effort invested into current domain is enormous, and migrating into another TLD would mean a huge campain to make people know the new location. This includes rebuilding reputation in search engines from scratch. Many non-profit organizations hosted in .org simply do not have money to do that, and sharp price increase is likely to hit their budgets, given that trustee maintaining the prices has given up, totally failing its function. This is a very real concern, since each gTLD registry is effectively a monopoly, and can dictate the prices. You cannot register a domain in one TLD by means of other registry, you have to adhere to their rules, or register your domain in another TLD. Even the organizations who have maxed out their domains validity in time will be hit by this change in the future, as they will eventually have to renew the domain. Being an non-profit organization yourself, I hope you can put yourselves in the shoes of smaller organizations, and maintain the trustee function of legacy TLDs. With kind regards, Lech

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Please don't remove the 10% cap
by DaveTaylor April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

It is really important that there is a cap on price increases every year as removing one has the potential to really hurt consumers of those domains. Please keep the internet affordable to all and not big corporations. Kind Regards Dave Taylor

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by Contact Cem 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. ⁣Get BlueMail for Android

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by Niklas Matthies 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. Best regards, Niklas Matthies

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Thoughts on the proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by Adam Corbett April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

I an a registrant for a small number of domains. In the new proposal, 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. It is not fair to .org domain owners to remove these price caps. Many of .org websites have been in used for years, and -if price caps are removed- the cost to renew their domain names may become burdensome; possibly forcing websites that are important to those registrants or their users to be closed or moved to new domains (an excessively onerous process). 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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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by Tim Keller 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. Sincerely, –Tim -- *Tim Keller* timkeller.me <http://www.timkeller.me/> • @timkeller <http://twitter.com/timkeller> • +27.82.053.2321

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] comment
by Anatoli April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

Hi, I'm totally against unrestricted price increases provision in the renewal agreement. Public Interest Registry is a monopoly for .org domains which means they can put any price and there would be no other option but paying the price or dropping the domain. As most of the .org domains are used by non-profit organizations, this could increase their expenses considerably. The .org domain should be available at the same price as .com and other common GTLDs. Thanks, Anatoli

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Org renewal changes
by Leake, Nicholas April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

Hi, I think that going forward there should continue to be a price cap for .org registrations - many of these have been set up by charities and individuals and so they should continue to be protected by having a price cap. I accept that it would be reasonable to allow the cap to be increased to take account of inflation, but to remove the cap altogether exposes customers to potentially unbound costs. Regards Nick Nick Leake; Chief Information Officer; King's College London; 5-11 Lavington Street, London; SE1 0NZ; 020 7848 4480 [cid:image001.jpg@01D0AE0F.42C89B10]<sip:nick.leake@kcl.ac.uk> Assistant: matilda.nassali(a)kcl.ac.uk<mailto:matilda.nassali@kcl.ac.uk> Tel: 020 7848 4480 www.kcl.ac.uk<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/> [ITSD email signature][Kings_TechBar_EmailBanner_TP FINAL (002)]

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement
by Yethadka, Sukumar 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. Sukumar Yethadka Senior Developer SAP SE, Konrad-Zuse-Ring 10 14469 Potsdam Germany M +49 1511 7194 4992

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[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] (no subject)
by Dave April 28, 2019

April 28, 2019

Domain names are not a competitive market, each tld is managed by one organization and if they find their costs increasing too much beyond a fixed inflation factor, maybe they should be put out to bid for fixed term contracts. Then there might be competition and a true understanding of the costs involved in running a tld beyond just profit. Sent while mobile.

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