Oppose Lifting of Price Controls

["Duane Hitz, Jr." <dehjr@xxxxxxxxx>]

To whom it may concern:

I strongly oppose the lifting of price controls on registry services for 
.org registry operators per ICANN's 28 June 2006 announcement regarding a 
proposed new registry agreement.

This provision would effectively place registries in the position of being 
able to charge whatever they want for domain names based upon an owner's 
financial wherewithal, site traffic, the "market value" of the domain name, 
or whatever other arbitrary measures they choose.

Effectively, this could amount to legalized extortion - and an 
institutionalized, sanctioned form of domain name "squatting" that occurred 
early in the history of the widely available Internet.

I am certainly not against registriy operators being compensated based upon 
the value of their services - however, the value of basic domain name 
registration is identical, regardless of the domain name.

This would be the equivalent of the US Postal Service charging a variable 
fee per street address based upon the net worth of an individual or 
business, with an annual renewal – and refusing to deliver mail until the 
fee is paid in full.  This would not be in the public interest – and 
certainly would be soundly rejected by all. If imposed, such an action would 
create competition through market forces ultimately resulting in the 
complete loss of authority and sustainable credibility for the Postal 
Service.

This action would grant registry operators equity in other enterprises' 
intellectual property to which they are not entitled - allowing a registry 
to withhold domain name registration, potentially crippling an enterprise, 
unless it were forthcoming with the "ransom".

It would also result in a complete loss of credibility for ICANN and the 
registries, would increase the barriers to entry for businesses and 
individuals alike, and potentially stifle the innovation that has been 
created by the wide and cheap availability of domain name registration 
services.

ICANN performs a public good and it would be extremely irresponsible for it 
to create through official action pervasive moral hazard among the 
registries and facilitate the generation of significant profit without 
having undertaken the commensurate risk or having made a commensurate 
investment in capital.

Again, I strongly oppose your proposed action!

Sincerely,

Duane E. Hitz, Jr.
Chief Technology Officer
ServiceLogix, Inc.