Comments on Renewal Contracts

["DomainEvent.com" <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

To the ICANN Board,

 

The proposed TLD Registry Renewal Contracts for .info, .biz, and .org
domains have a seriously flawed component whereby a registrar will be able
to set arbitrary rates without price caps at whatever the market will bear.
This will create a financially devastating impact on the business models of
millions of domain and web site owners worldwide.

 

The impact will be especially damaging to .org and .info domain owners and
site operators who for the most part use .org and .info domains for
non-profit, charitable organizations, and educational purposes.

 

Hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested into the core domain name
infrastructure of the Internet with the secured expectation that acquiring,
owning and maintaining domains would always be affordable and make economic
sense for a long term investment.

 

To enable and facilitate a way for registrars to financially exploit and
gouge the marketplace would not only be a business tragedy, but it goes
against the grain of all the base principles upon which the Internet was
conceived. It would certainly deter new entrepreneurs from considering
venturing onto the Net if there is no certainty what their site's URL
location will be costing them each year they renew. And the vast multitude
of current domain owners and web site operators would close up shop if their
costs of doing business skyrocketed on every domain they own.

 

Even more importantly, this flaw would give an unfair economic advantage to
individuals and corporations who have substantial capital resources who
could outbid less fortunate and startup entrepreneurs with limited capital.

 

And inevitably, there would be a tidal wave of costly and time consuming
lawsuits and litigation that ICANN itself would have to deal with from the
millions of impacted domain owners.

 

Thus, I respectfully request that you reconsider and reconstruct the
contracts and completely remove the clause pertaining to no price caps.

 

Regards,

Robert Townsend