Please spend 5 minutes to send an email to ICANN about the .asia price increase!

Please spend 5 minutes TODAY to send an email to ICANN about opposing the .asia domain name price increase by instituting a price cap!

This is the email address to use: comments-asia-renewal-27mar19@icann.org

You just send a simple email saying you oppose the fact there are no price caps for .asia and add whatever comments you may also have. The direct link to the ICANN public comment is here. You can find there all the details.

If you think you don’t care about .asia please read this: Wake up people! ICANN and the registries want to steal your domain names!

There are only 11 comments so far for .asia while the .biz public comment that ends next week already has 361 comments.

Last week .Org received 3,315 comments while .info had 514 comments.

Here is the comment that I sent today:

Stop the .asia price increase and URS!

I am a .asia registrant and I strongly oppose uncapped price increases in .asia domains and the introduction of URS.

Shame on you ICANN for even suggesting a comment period for such despicable changes to the legacy extensions: .org (PIR), .biz (Neustar), .info (Afilias) and .asia (DotAsia Organisation Ltd. and Afilias).

How does ICANN justifies these huge price increases on domain names that cost less than $1 to maintain and operate?

Shame and disgust on the privileged registries that have made millions over the past few years from us all. Us all the domain name registrants that come from all over the world.

“Legacy” TLDs, such as .org .net .com .biz .info and .asia, have absolutely nothing in common with all new gTLDs. Legacy extensions were created 15 to 30 years before the new gtlds and are essentially a monopoly on the internet. All 1000+ new gtlds represent less than 5% of all domains. The 10+ legacy tlds have the other 95% of the market share.

dotAsia Organisation Limited, PIR, Afilias, Neustar and Neustar did not create these extensions as it happened with the New gTLDs and they certainly did not or currently have any competition.

New gTLDs companies paid millions in auctions to get the rights of these extensions.

What would happen if the legacy TLDs were put up for auction with today’s capped price increases? Other companies would pay millions to have the privilege of being one of the respective extension operator.

Popular New gtld extensions were auctioned of for millions while the legacy extensions were simply awarded to be operated by the respective registries. Verisign paid $135 million for the rights of .web domains. How much do you think the .com registry would be auctioned today? Even if .com prices were set at $3 or $5 the high bidder registry would probably end up paying billions.

These legacy extensions were NOT created by dotAsia Organisation Limited, PIR, Afilias, Neustar or Verisign. The extensions existed before these companies and will exist after these companies. These are not their extensions. They are our extensions. And by our I am talking about the registrants around the world. And some people in the US this they own the extensions. They don’t. The legacy extensions belong to the whole world.

ICANN should stop catering to the big registries and pay more attention to protect the owners of .asia domain names. The registries have made billions of dollars over the past 20 years. The registries are already operating a ridiculously high profit margin (65%-70% or even higher) that are not met in any other industry.

The Verisign .com monopoly reported last week a huge operating margin that was 65.4 percent for the first quarter of 2019. Instead of being grateful for this gift that it is being given all the legacy registries are asking for domain name price increases. It is time that all legacy contracts are put up for grabs for a more competitive prices. The .com extension can be operated for maybe $2 or $3 per domain and companies would pay millions to have the privilege to operate the extension at this level. Same with .asia domains.

Companies would easily pay a couple of billion to operate the .com at $5 per domain for the next 6 years. Or they could easily pay 500 million to operate the .com registry at $3 per domain for the next 6 years. Yet ICANN strangely allows this Verisign, Afilias, PIR and Neustar greed and arrogance. It makes you think what “organization” ICANN has become over the past few years…

Instead of price increases with should be having price decreases on all legacy extensions including .org domains.

New domain extensions charge any price they want and they have been a disaster so far. Registries are suddenly increasing registration and renewal fees of up to 3,000%!!!! Lots of people are complaining because of this and this has already been very bad for the domain name industry’s reputation.

.Asia has the right to raise prices 10% every year that already too much and well above the current inflation. Allowing huge price increases from one year to the next could ruin .asia for everybody.

The .asia registry or any other legacy extension operator must not be allowed to raise prices are they wish. These domain names belong to the whole world and not just these 4-5 registry companies. They are only paid to be the administrative operator and nothing more. And the current price is well above what the current price for a new gtld backend is. New gtlds backend registries are charging $1 per domain or less. These are companies like Afilias, PIR and Neustar that are now getting paid $10+ from us the world domain name registrants and yet they want a lot more. And ICANN is surprisingly willing to give them whatever they want instead of doing their job that is to protect the registrants.

Increasing .asia and other legacy tld prices will be a disaster. What happens if prices go to $100 per domain or $1,000 per domain? This is about the whole effect this will have on the global. How is such a huge price increase justified?

An increase of all legacy domains (lets say about 200 million of legacy domains) from $10 to $100 per year would mean that an extra 180 BILLION dollars will go to just 4 companies over the next 10 years. 4 US companies. How is this justified?

All these domain name registrants now pay about 20 billion over 10 years.

They will have to pay 200 BILLION dollars at $100!!! Or 2 trillion at $1,000 per domain!

Greece’s gross domestic product is about 200 billion per year. We would love to take over these extensions and run a few servers around the world. This is free money.

Companies have already paid for the rights of their .asia, .org, .info or .com domains.

Any price increase would effectively mean that dotAsia Organisation Limited, Afilias, Verisign or PIR would cease our domains and make us pay rent on them. This is domain name confiscation!!!

Before you know it your company or personal .asia domain will cost $200 or $3,000 per year or $10,000 per year depending on what dotAsia Organisation Limited decides that you have to pay them depending on the domain name.

They will essentially confiscate our domains (that we either bought years ago or even paid thousands or millions to purchase) and make us pay them rent on them.

At this point new gtld prices are held down because of the capped legacy TLDs prices. If legacy domain prices get to $200 per domain per year then all domains will cost $200 or more. Or $1,000 or more.

There is little competition in all domain names as dotAsia Organisation Limited, Verisign, PIR, Afilias and Neustar are basically monopolies. They have a 95% market share. It only takes these 4 companies and soon all domain names could cost $200 or $500 or more.

Practically these large companies are attempting to steal all our land and homes and rent them back to us. Domain names are our land and homes on the internet. This attempt is only possible with the help of ICANN and their executives that hide behind a non-profit organization while making millions in salaries and while NOT protecting the domain name registrants.

We are now paying an administrative fee to these companies. An administrative is pretty much set in competitive world. New gtlds are paying $1 or less per domain. But there is no competition in these registries. They are essentially monopolies that will be able to charge us whatever they want if ICANN allows them to have no price caps.

Anything above $2 or $3 per year is already too expensive for the backend registries that dotAsia Organisation Limited, Verisign, PIR, Afilias and Neustar truly are.

Finally .ASIA domains don’t need the URS. There have been a lot of bad decisions under the UDRP from the unregulated UDRP providers. The URS is even worse.