ICANN Proposed Settlement

["Henry Ho" <hh@xxxxxxxxxx>]

To Whom It May Concern:
 
I am writing in response to ICANN's proposed settlement with Verisign
regarding the .com registry.  As an IT professional working with the
Internet as far back as 1991, and as a web hosting business owner, I believe
this settlement is wrong and extremely unfair to the worldwide Internet
community.
 
The .com registry is hands-down one of the most sought after registry due to
its sheer size and popularity.  It is unreasonable for Verisign to have a
virtual monopolostic hold to run the registry indefinitely with the ability
to raise registrar's costs by 7% each year without justification.  The
perpetual presumptive renewal clause gives Verisign no incentives to improve
the .com registry and locks competitors out of providing the Internet
community with more cost-effective and better solutions.  We all know that
innovation dies when there's no competition.
 
As we have seen over the years, Verisign is a for-profit corporation that is
interested in increasing its revenues with little to no regard for the
Internet community.  I believe the biggest blunder was when they began
redirecting all unregistered domain names to their PPC search engine.  This
alone shows that Verisign does not care about the Internet, and this
settlement will only give them more power to do such things again in the
future with no fears.  This opens the door for them to have a monopoly over
other services, including back-order domains and expired domain name
redemption.
 
With the amount of .com domains registered and renewed each day, there is no
reason that Verisign will need to increase its prices by 7% each year.
While yes, we don't know that if they will increase their prices, having
that specific wording in the settlement will allow them to take advantage of
it.  And as previously mentioned, Verisign is interested in making profit.  
 
Surely I realize that 7% of $6 is not very much.  Only a mere 42 cents.
However when domain registrars and resellers have to compete with each
other's prices, 42 cents adds up very quickly, especially when it can be
increased each year.
 
I believe ICANN should not settle with Verisign under the current proposed
draft.
 
I hope you will take my comments into consideration and will revise this
proposed settlement to benefit the Internet community.
 
Thank you for your time.
 
-Henry Ho
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Henry Ho
Eclair Omnimedia Corporation
3652 Eastham Dr., Suite 3
Culver City, CA 90232
(Located inside the Colourcraft Printing Building)
 
Toll-Free: 888-8-ECLAIR
Direct: 310-902-4992
Fax: 888-439-3378
 
Website: www.eclair.com <http://www.eclair.com/> 
Email: hh@xxxxxxxxxx
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