Medicine.org and contract pricing

["eric shannon" <eshannon@xxxxxxxxxx>]

To the ICANN Board,

It's been brought to my attention that there is no fixed contract pricing
set in the .org registry contract and that this has the potential to allow
registries to increase prices on domains according to the value of
individual domains.

I've invested well over $100,000 in the development of www.Medicine.org
where I'm building a non-commercial community health portal. Now, my
decision to use this domain was predicated on knowing that the renewal cost
would stay relatively fixed and inexpensive. Now that my resources have been
allocated on this domain, the .org registry essentially has a monopoly over
me. I can't change the domain from Medicine.org to some other domain without
squandering a large portion of my investment.

If you give a registry exclusive rights to operate a top level domain, you
cannot also give them unlimited power to raise prices. The operation of a
registry in a top level domain is a natural monopoly and must be responsibly
managed by ICANN to protect the interests of all parties. Unlimited pricing
power would introduce an element of risk for me that would discourage me
from further developing www.Medicine.org or any other .org or .info website
for that matter.

Please establish reasonable contract pricing with any registry that is given
the exclusive privilege to run a top level domain. This is necessary to
provide a fair, safe and reliable environment for those that would invest in
our public resources. 

Sincerely,

Eric Shannon

 

President

LatPro, Inc.

tel: 954-727-3855

 <http://www.latpro.com/?wf=eric>