Say "NO!" to Variable-Priced Domain Renewals

[<lists@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear ICANN,
 
I was recently alerted to the fact that ICANN wishes to introduce "variable
pricing" into its BIZ TLD agreements. As a small business owner, this
decision could, for me and my family, be the precurser of something ranging
from a mild annoyance to a catastrophic loss long-term.
 
If it is possible for someone to simply "price my domain out of my reach", I
could lose my whole web-based business (and it could be conveniently
transferred to someone with slightly deeper pockets) at the whim of some
official at ICANN.
 
It is fundamentally immoral to make variable pricing a part of the renewal
and registration sceme. It is equivalent to confiscation without due process
if the domain owner cannot or will not pay the "protection money" required
to renew his or her domain names. At the end, this reduces the domain
registration process to an auction or a poker game where he who can bluff
best or he that has the deepest pockets is the winner.
 
Instead of allowing domain owners to concentrate on innovating and solving
customer problems, this decision will foster a more political domain renewal
process with senseless negotiations, confusion and needless litigation. It
adds unnecessary complexity and cost. 
 
Looking long term: the directions that the powerful are taking on the Net to
consolidate their power will induce those who wish to be "free" to set up
alternate services and their own networks and organizations. If the
two-tiered Internet is then created, then we will have the oppression of
Communist Russia and Nazi Germany and the "resistance" on a worldwide
digital level. Is this the world we want our children to grow up in? 
 
Please reconsider the variable domain name pricing scheme from the current
proposals.
 
Thank you for reading. 
 
Ryan Orrock