ICANN: Pay Careful Attention, No Room for Error

["Max Menius" <mmeniusjr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear ICANN Board - 

In reference to "no price restrictions" for the NEW gTLD's, look at the .BIZ 
time bomb waiting to explode (Neustar's comments at bottom). It is an excerpt 
from Neustar's Jeffrey Neuman, Vice President, Law & Policy submission sent to 
you this December 15, 2008. 

Quickly summed up: If ICANN allow unregulated pricing for new gTLD's, then the 
existing gTLD registries (Neustar et al) will throw a tantrum and move to 
jeopardize the legitimacy of existing ICANN registry agreements. Is this in the 
best interest of the internet and the businesses that constitute it?

One certainty: Removal of price caps for EXISTING tld's is not acceptable, 
ever. All of this was fully addressed 2 years ago during the biz/info/org 
contract discussions.

Neustar Jeffrey Neuman submission ... 
"In the event that price caps are not included for the new gTLDs, NeuStar 
believes that price caps must be removed from the .biz registry agreement ... 
Failure to eliminate price caps absent substantial and reasonable cause would 
violate the Registry Agreements, ICANN's Bylaws, and run contrary to the 
principles of competition as set forth in the White Paper out of which ICANN 
was created."

So the .BIZ registry are apparently looking for any loophole possible to adopt 
unregulated pricing. And what happens when every other registry demands the 
same consideration? What happens to the end user who has invested everything 
into building an online business when the various registries begin gouging him 
or her with inflated domain registration and annual renewal prices?

Max Menius

Menius Enterprises, Inc.

Greensboro, NC, USA