We oppose the contractual amendment for .pro to unilaterally lower their fees

[George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>]

This is yet another case where a registry who already had a contract with ICANN 
is trying to gain one-sided concessions. To gain something, in most business 
negotiations you have to give something up. Here, though, RegistryPro gains 
unilaterally, with ICANN and the community losing.

In the world of ICANN, if you're a registry operator, you can promise the world 
when you apply for a new gTLD, but if things don't work out, you simply ask for 
concessions. The rule should be "a contract is a contract is a contract" 
(unless it's an anti-competitive one that is against the public interest, like 
the monopoly dot-com contracts, where the government or the courts should feel 
free to break/void those contracts to protect consumers).

Go back to their initial business plan/application/approval:

http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/pro2/
http://www.icann.org/en/tlds/pro2/Registry%20Operators%20Proposal.htm
http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/prelim-report-14mar02.htm

In D13.2.2 of the 2nd link:

"A detailed profit and loss account that provides a breakdown of revenue and 
costs on a monthly basis. From a revenue perspective, we have assumed that 
RegistryPro commences operations in month 6 and that during the initial sunrise 
and landrush period, 1,000,000 registrations are sold. After this period, 
registrations are anticipated to be approximately 90,000 a month and increase 
at between 0% to 10% per month depending on the level of marketing activity."

Keep reading the above links for their fiction about the "demand for .pro", 
their marketing plan, etc. (and keep that in mind whenever you read anything 
from new gTLD advocates, including ICANN). And then go back to their letter to 
ICANN saying:

"A lower fee would enable the registry to invest in marketing and branding 
initiatives that will make us competitive with other similarly sized 
registries."

Hmmm, what about your original BUSINESS PLAN???

.pro is a failed registry, with only 36,000 registrations after 6 years. It 
should be put out of its misery and be phased out of the root. They should 
serve as a poster child of why new gTLDs are a bad idea. This is probably why 
ICANN refuses to do a proper independent economic report on new gTLDs, with 
empirical evidence, despite a board vote to do so years ago. If they actually 
looked at the facts of TLDs they approved in the past like .pro, the results 
would be undeniable and would undermine ICANN's agenda.

In conclusion, their request should be denied. If RegistryPro can't meet their 
obligations, they should go out of business, or have the TLD delegated to 
another registry operator.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.leap.com/