ICANN

This Means War! ICANN proposes lifting price cap provisions on .org and .info domains!

This means war! ICANN proposes lifting price cap provisions .org and .info domains! This is the most serious matter that registrants have come up against ever.

If these agreements are accepted by ICANN then VERISIGN will come running asking ICANN to lift price cap provisions in .com and .net. So all domains can go overnight from $10 per year to $100 or $200 per year.

And .org and .info get to raise the prices 10% every year as it is. That is well above inflation.

I am talking about $100 or $200 per year because that is what some new gtlds are charging per year for registrations and renewals.

This does not affect just domain investors like a few people said. I know small businesses that have tens of domains. Lifting price caps could mean that they can go from paying $500 per year for domains to $5,000 or $10,000 per year.

This is NOT a competitive business like web hosting. Registries have the monopoly of each extension. Imagine there was only one web host in the US what the prices would be.

Legacy extensions are not some new thing like New gTLDs. Legacy extensions are where the World Wide Web was built on since 1985. Verisign, Afilias and PIR did not create .com, .net, .info and .org. They got to be the registry of these extensions and instead of being generous that they made billions of these extensions (probably x10 more than if there was registry competition) now they want to make x100.

ICANN published yesterday the Proposed Renewal of .Org Registry Agreement and the Proposed Renewal of .info Registry Agreement.

Both registry agreements are open for public comments until April 29 2019. Anyone can comment and I suggest people start commenting NOW!

The purpose of these public comment proceedings is to obtain community input on the proposed renewal agreements. These renewal agreements are a result of discussions between ICANN and Afilias Limited, the registry operator for the .info top-level domain (TLD) and Public Interest Registry, a Pennsylvania non-profit corporation – the Registry Operator for the .org top-level domain (TLD).

I can see Afilias asking ICANN for lifting price caps but Public Interest Registry??? Seriously? A “non-profit” corporation. Why do they need 10x the money they are getting now? To pay salaries and bonuses? These registries can be run on $1-$2 per domain. Instead they are now asking for permission from ICANN to make $100+ per domain.

And why is ICANN even discussing this??? What is going on in this corrupted organization??

Here is what the new .org agreement proposes about .org prices:

Pricing for Domain Name Registrations and Registry Services (Section 2.10 of the proposed renewal agreement): In alignment with the base registry agreement, the price cap provisions in the current .org agreement, which limited the price of registrations and allowable price increases for registrations, are removed from the .org renewal agreement. Protections for existing registrants will remain in place, in line with the base registry agreement. This change will not only allow the .org renewal agreement to better conform with the base registry agreement, but also takes into consideration the maturation of the domain name market and the goal of treating the Registry Operator equitably with registry operators of new gTLDs and other legacy gTLDs utilizing the base registry agreement

Here is what the new .info agreement proposes about .info prices:

Pricing for Domain Name Registrations and Registry Services (Section 2.10 of the proposed renewal agreement): In alignment with the base registry agreement, the price cap provisions in the current .info agreement, which limited the price of registrations and allowable price increases for registrations, are removed from the .info renewal agreement. Protections for existing registrants will remain in place in line with the base registry agreement. This change will not only allow the .info renewal agreement to better conform with the base registry agreement, but also takes into consideration the maturation of the domain name market and the goal of treating the Registry Operator equitably with operators of new gTLDs and other legacy gTLDs utilizing the base registry agreement.

Finally, ICANN proposes that .info and .org domains will be subject to the Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) set forth in Section 2 of Specification 7, including the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) system, the Trademark Post-Delegation Dispute Resolution Procedure (PDDRP) and the Registration Restrictions Dispute Resolution Procedure (RRDRP).

Sold.Domains

About Konstantinos Zournas

I studied Computer Engineering and Computer Science in London, UK and I am now living in Athens, Greece. I went online in 1995, started coding in 1996 and began buying domain names and creating websites in 2000. I started the OnlineDomain.com blog in 2012.

11 comments

  1. I could not give a shit about .INFO because I dumped them previously, but .ORG have gone from $8 to $12 already, I note it did say

    “Protections for existing registrants will remain in place, in line with the base registry agreement.”

    But you are right, this is a monopoly, I suggest that anyone reading this page report ICANN for monopolistic & Cartel practices to the FTC and also to the EU competition Commission.

    ICANN have been off the rails for some time now, I feel that they have sold out to Corporate interests a while ago, I got rid of thousands of domains when I spotted this as I felt they would screw us all in the end. Now it looks as if I will have to get serious about registering for 10 years as you proposed yesterday.

    This DOES mean war and we need to regulate this useless organisation or break it up.

  2. This domain market will become a ruin for many Domainer, currently the market domains is like the market economy with supply and demand, the economy is still very bad after a few years with the problems since the last real estate bubble they have returned to make large investments in millionaire acquisitions, business monopolies are returning and other non-profit organizations are participating.
     
    I think we are interested in all of us is the supply and demand the only extension is the (Com) is the best.

    Happy Day. Jose.

    • Jose

      That is what they want, the idea is to force us out and allow corporates to take over as they have tried to do in Digital Marketing.

      Report ICANN for monopolistic practices to FTC and EU Commission

      It does apply to EU in the same way as US companies are forced to comply with GDPR

      • @Neal, Start from the flat terrain and the foundations of a construction in its beginning Real Estate and its writing.

        To understand that I do not like the GDRP I am also fed up, now I have several times during these years I have made comments in other blog about the Legal Notice websites and blog of the Ex-Presidende USA Mr. Obama this to reach an agreement with the EU for that this Legal Notice was for all the same and that way it was fulfilled.

        Upon the arrival of the current US President Mr. Trump, break in his oath before the US Nation all that the previous, US President Mr. Obama, the Legal Notice of the websites and blog should be only for the US Americans and we for the EU accept the change.

        I remind you that the GDRP was the fault of a US company based in Ireland which had leaked the Secret Data of the registered users on Facebook this GDRP was the fault of Facebook has paid its fine for the EU although in their country after several years now they blame the President Facebook and must pay the fine imposed by the Laws of Justice USA ……….

        The problem of monopolies is from the sides of the Atlantic Ocean, although the EU is more concerned today, many hundreds of thousands millions of US dollars investments of China in countries allied with the United States, such as the United Kingdom, which has received $ 42,000 million of Chinese investments, the largest in the world. possible country with a desire for a global economic collapse with the Brexit , experts in economics and finance around the world predict that the monetary depreciation of only the United Kingdom will have a 34-year retreat and the stock markets around the world will occur more or less the same.

        I remind you of the political policies of the current US President Mr. Trump with China, this country has invested the same as Russia in many countries of the EU, and in the African, European, Asian Continents.

        Digital marketing was born in 1971 when I was 18 years old. read second-hand books of Marketing written by writers USA and edited in the USA. which were my best teachers, so I have written in my notes diary this if renewed: The development digital marketing is part of the technological development, starting In 1971, Mr. Ray Tomlinson sent the first email.

  3. This proposal is RAPE (reprehensible and pure evil).

  4. Today at dawn in Spain (EU) I publish a comment on the economic market, supply and demand … this link is today March, 21, 2019, Business Insider in Spain here do translation from Spanish to English, so you can read .
    https://www.businessinsider.es/bolsas-pueden-apuntarse-alcista-festival-392075?utm_source=Business+Insider&utm_campaign=385e037431-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_10_19_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_74c16e9a4a-385e037431-115486837

    (Editor: please stay relevant)

    • You practically always add some kind of 1,000 page Russian novel right after I post. I can get longwinded, but you make even me look terse. It’s doubtful people read yours, and what you are doing is muddying the water and distracting from and burying other valuable comments.

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