Price Caps Are Not "Competition"

["Mary Iqbal" <media@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I must heartily disagree with the comment from Mr. Kirikos stating that 
ICANN should insist on price caps to ensure that companies do not gouge 
consumers with high prices.  This will actually have a detrimental effect 
on competition and increased diversity of services, since companies that 
focus on smaller, niche markets, like .museum, would thereby be totally 
unable to exist, since they would not be able to cover their costs if they 
couldn't charge more than .com.  

Niche Registries, like .museum, must charge a much higher price than .com 
because they can not benefit from economies of scale the way .com can.  
.museum must cover all of their costs with a much smaller customer base.  
Therefore, they have to charge more than .com.

Another example is .pro.  The .pro Registry charges a premium for the added 
service of verifying the professions of applicants for certain of their 
domains.  If ICANN were to act on the suggestion of implementing a price 
cap, then .pro would not be able to exist, since they could certainly not 
cover their costs by charging as low a price as .com.

No one is forcing customers to buy a .com domain.  If the price is too 
high, simply do not buy one.  Likewise, if customers do not want the added 
services provided by the .pro Registry, they should refrain from purchasing 
a .pro domain.

Regards,

Mary