Yes to .INFO Contract, With One Modification

["Raj Reddy" <raj_reddy29@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Respected ICANN Board Members,

I hereby submit my comments regarding the proposed .INFO contract renewal for 
your kind perusal.

1. The .INFO registry has a very good record of providing strong and stable 
support to the domain name system.
2. The .INFO domain is very popular, and is the first time a competitor to 
Verisign is trying to establish in the market.
3. The .COM domain and the .NET domain have been given terms that are very 
advantageous to it's registry operator.
4. If .INFO is not given terms substantially similar to .COM and .NET, it will 
continue to fall even more behind. Already, COM and NET together have 87% 
market share of the entire gTLD domains. Poor INFO is at only 5%, and is 
falling behind COM and NET every single 
day.(http://www.webhosting.info/registries/). If you impose price controls on 
INFO and BIZ and ORG and leave COM and NET untouched, you are not doing your 
duty in promoting fair and free competition.
5. Here in India the .INFO domain name is not very populare yet, but the big 
registrars are starting to offer it to resellers at good price discounts 
finally.
6. Here in India, where price is the most important factor to buy a name, .INFO 
has been reduced to the extent it is now available for a mere Rs.100 in the 
market. No one else has done this.
7. The .INFO contract should contain a clause that safeguards against domain 
price gouging by the registry. Price gouging is a well known concept and can be 
easily defined and protected in the contract.

Your registrars are complete hypocrites. They want no controls on the prices 
they charge their customers and say that only market controls should exist. In 
addition, they want no oversight on their contracts, or the egregious, immoral 
and unethical business practices that all of them follow, such as:
o Domain Tasting
o Add Grace Period abuse
o Domain Drop abuse
o Slamming registrants
o Secret Whois registrations
o Domain Warehousing
o Domain Kiting

At the same time, they right high and migty letters about how all registry 
contracts should be not renewed.

Together INFO, ORG and BIZ represent the only real competition to the 
uncontrolled hegemony of COM and NET. It is your duty to promote free and fair 
competition and approve the INFO contract as also the other two mentioned above.

Respectfully Submitted
Raj Reddy
August 29, 2006