OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
Please act now. The comment period for the proposed price increases of .com closes tomorrow Friday, February 14, 2020. I could have written a lot more about this as I wrote about .org but I know very few would get past the first few paragraphs.
I am a .com registrant and I strongly oppose the proposed price increases in .com domain names. I also represent all my clients here in Greece that are also owners of .com domain names.
I am writing this comment with full knowledge that I will be ignored by ICANN. This comment period parody that ICANN has built only legitimizes their predetermined corrupted decisions. Comments, just like with .org where 3,200 comments were ignored, will once again be ignored. Verisign will get permission to print money through the .com price increases while ICANN gets some spare change from Verisign as a gift for their “services”.
Billions of dollars will flow from the global economy to the pockets of Verisign employees and shareholders without any real economy justification.
The cost of maintaining the .com registry is going down while Verisign remains the domain name monopoly that it is.
Verisign is running the .com registry at a cost of below $3 per domain name while charging $7.85. Apparently that is not enough for ICANN. $3 is already an inflated price. If the .com registry contract was put up for a public bid, as it should, then the cost would drop $2 and could even approach $1 per domain name.
How does ICANN justifies a 30% price increase over 4 years on domain names that cost so little to maintain and operate? Oh wait. ICANN said that their are not price regulators. But yes they are. They always were price regulators of the WHOLESALE pricing. They are not regulators of the RETAIL pricing. ICANN was always setting a maximum wholesale price on all legacy TLDs like .com, .net, .org, .info and .biz. Only 2 months ago did it change its tune and started saying they are not price regulators. ICANN is a price regulator of legacy domain names just like every country in the world regulates the pricing of its own ccTLD.
Of course the 30% price increase is just the beginning. .Com domain names will keep increasing year after year, squeezing money from unprotected registrants all over the world. Verisign’s monopoly violates people’s rights all over the world. I hope governments from countries all over the world get involved to stop this theft.
ICANN is now working for their registry friends instead of doing their job that is protecting the public from unjustified price increases. ICANN people are just doing anything so as not to lose their bonuses and to secure their next high paying job at one of the registries they help get richer. Biggest example is Fadi Chehade, former Chief Executive Officer of ICANN, that is now consulting for Donuts that has over 200 new domain extensions and also consulting for the potential buyers of .org. ICANN removed the price caps on .org domains despite public outrage. Now ICANN is being investigated by the California Attorney General.
Verisign is one of the most profitable companies in the world with some of the highest profit margins ever observed. People all over the world are not working to pay the Verisign tax that ICANN imposes on them.
Stop the .com price increase now!
Please act now
The comment period for the proposed price increases of .com closes tomorrow Friday, February 14, 2020. I suggest you give ICANN some “love” here:
https://www.icann.org/public-comments/com-amendment-3-2020-01-03-en
If you don’t know what to do then you can also use this tool from ICA, although I don’t suggest this for a couple of reasons. One of the reasons is that ICANN’s Ombudsman, Herb Waye called the 3,200 comments we, the registrants, submitted for the .org contract renewal (and the removal of price caps) SPAM.
You can simply send an email to this email address comments-com-amendment-3-03jan20@icann.org and freely speak your mind. Please do this even if you write just a few words and even if you think nothing will change and ICANN will just do what they want.
OnlineDomain.com - © Copyright 2012-2024 - All Rights Reserved
Well put, and hopefully every point you made will be read and considered by ICANN.
If not, at least you have done your part and helped set a good example for others.
Please send a comment too if you have not already.
Thank you Konstantinos. They have to thoroughly investigate both ICANN and Verisign board members, executives and staff for insider trading and other shadowy connections. I just sent an email to ICANN with my comments against the .com price increase. This is unfair monopoly!
Thanks Dimitris. We must meet some time.
Things to highlight during the comment period:
1. Legacy TLDs are a *public trust*. They are not “owned” by anyone or anything, not even ICANN. They are managed.
2. As has been so well pointed out by others before, there is no justification for continual price increases, and if there was any concern about maximizing value for the world, competitive bidding for managing .com would already have resulted in FAR lower prices to begin with.
3. Ergo, .com is not supposed to be treated like a license to print money for greedy corporations at the expense of the entire world.
4. And this one most “domainers” can’t relate to, but it’s true:
Having and using *many* domains is NOT just what “domainers” do. It is also the legitimate business model of end users who do things that way, as well as even just for business-necessary defensive registration. It’s certainly what I do as an end user first by a mile, domain investor/occasional seller only second. A distant second in fact.
5. Regardless of #4 even: the price of even 1 single domain makes a difference to the world in terms of equality and affordability of opportunity. It can either be conducive to or DISINCENTIVISE the very kind of innovation and societal benefit that exists in the world through publishing and entrepreneurship. The idea that “a business owner won’t care about going from $15 to $30” and remarks to that affect are nothing but nonsense with regard to the big picture. It’s not just about people who already are in business or are publishing, but begins with the common citizen who is not even in business or publishing yet.
The Handshake Naming System (Handshake.org) went live and removes ICANN from the equation.
Verisign is also trying to sell their own .COM domain names in the new contract by owning their own domain registrar, which they do not have right now.
Verisign just oversees the .COM registry, they don’t own it.