John L ha scritto:
3. Once a user has selected a domain, that domain's registry is the
monopoly supplier of renewals. Predictable pricing from those
monopoly suppliers is an important part of the stability of the net.
Millions of people have bought domains on the expectation of being
able to renew them at about the same price they have paid in the past.
Prepaying for 10 years is not a substitute for stability, both because
10 years is not a long time in business and personal events, and
because it forces users to buy renewals they wouldn't otherwise buy,
purely do defend against registries raising the price should a domain
become notably successful.
(typo in the second last line, "to defend")
If you like, you could make the point more explicit, e.g.
"Registries and registrars should not be allowed to become hidden
shareholders on the ventures that use domain names to market their
products, by raising prices in case of success of the services that
others created (and ran the risk for) on the domain names they sell.
There is no economical justification for such a behaviour other than
the monopoly position of the registry."
4. Registries are, by all reports, profitable at the current capped
price and can and do make needed investments in infrastructure.
Indeed, the experience of the .net renewal strongly suggests that even
at $3 there would be multiple well qualified candidates to run these
three registries.
5. The current system of fixed price caps has worked well for
registries, registrars, and most importantly for users since ICANN
began. Removing price caps would benefit registries at the expense of
users. If registries want to remove price caps, they need to show a
community benefit that outweighs the substantial costs imposed on
users, which they have not done.
6. Traffic data, even that which has undergone some anonymization,
may still contain sensitive personal or competitive information. At a
minimum, more public consultation should be held before registries are
permitted to sell or otherwise exploit that data.
Maybe add that "Compliance of such provisions with existing privacy
laws in different legislations should be assessed in advance." ?
7. These contracts are explicitly designed for the benefit of users of
the DNS. Remove the "no third-party beneficiaries" language to enable
relying registrants and users to police their own interests.
8. Periodic re-bidding serves as a stronger check on bad behavior than
the weak arbitration and mediation provisions within the contract.
The presumptive perpetual renewal should be dropped.
I support the comment (both with or without my additions).
--
vb. [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<-----
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