Strongly Opposed to Proposed .BIZ, .INFO and .ORG Registry Agreement Changes

[frupp@xxxxxxx]

 To the ICANN Board,

I am opposed to the proposed changes to the Contracts for the .biz .info and 
.org Regstries specifically:


 Lifting of Price Controls on Registry Services.
 
 ICANN's Role is to provide Stability to the DNS, the internet, and to the 
Domain Registrants/Companies that have become "The Internet"...These Changes do 
everything, but, promote stability.
 
 The "Lifting of Price Controls on Registry Services." gives monopolistic 
control to each of the .biz, .info, and .org Registries and ensures anti 
Competive Pricing by lifting Caps on Registration Costs.
 
 It allows the Registry to charge whatever they can get away with, as they are 
unhindered by contractual obligations to continue to provide their service with 
only a small incremental price increase...
 
 Giving them free reign to charge what ever the market will bare...
 
 These Changes not only are contrary to that concept...they would be a bigger 
disruption to the Internet Businesses using those extensions, than SiteFinder's 
brief .com life ever was.
 
 
 and
 
 Other Standardized Terms. Consistent with the proposed new .COM registry 
agreement, each of the proposed .BIZ, .INFO and .ORG registry agreements 
contains a Section 3.1(f) on the use for statistical purposes only of "traffic 
data." The 2005 .NET registry agreement did not contain this provision, however 
the inclusion of this provision was negotiated by each of the .BIZ, .INFO and 
.ORG registry operators to provide for consistency with the proposed new .COM 
registry agreement, although this does not imply that these registries will 
implement said provision.
 
 Section 3.1(f)
 Nothing in this Agreement shall preclude Registry Operator from making 
commercial use of. or collecting, traffic data regarding domain names or 
non-existant domain names for purposes such as , without limitation, the 
determination of availability and health of the internet, pinpointing specific 
points of failure, characterizing attacks and misconfigurations, identifying 
compromised networks and hosts and promoting the sale of domain names, provided 
however, that such use does not disclose domain name registrant or end user 
information or other Personal Data as defined in section 3.1(c) (i) for any 
purpose not otherwise authorized by this agreement. The process for the 
introduction of new Registry Services shall not apply to such traffic data. 
Nothing contained in this section 3.1 (f) shall be deemed to constitute consent 
or acquiesdence by ICANN to an introduction by Registry Operator of a service 
employing a Wild Card function. To the extent that traffic data subject to th!
 is provision is made available, access shall be on terms that are 
nondiscriminatory...
 
 ---
 In plain english this says...If the Registry does not disclose domain name 
registrant or end user information or other Personal Data as defined in section 
3.1(c) (i) for any purpose not otherwise authorized by this agreement....it can 
collect, traffic data regarding domain names or non-existant domain names, 
gather whatever information about any quarries to their TLD that they can, and 
they can use that information any way they want to, and sell it to whomever can 
come up with the price, they set on it.
 
 Nondiscriminatory from what standpoint certainly not from a "Free for use" 
standpoint...as these would obviously be "Fee For Use of Information" 
Services...any Fee for use, is discriminatory, to someone that cannot afford it.
 
 Combine these 2 Changes to the Contract, and you have Registry Systems that 
are Monopolies, that can determine interest and value of: any existing 
registered (or future domain of interest) Domain, and the Right to get whatever 
they want for its Registration...leaving the millions of Registrants with a 6 
month window to either go out of business, or come up with what ever extorted 
amount, the Registry sets as the yearly fee for the Registration of their 
specific domain, based on arbitrary values the Registry determines they can get 
from a competitor that may want a Domain.
 
 
 I'd like to know if ICANN even thought to send out these ridiculous Proposed 
Change's to these Contracts; To the MILLIONS of Registrants/Businesses in these 
TLD's that would be effected...and that could be put out of business, by the 
acceptance of these Contract changes.
 
 
 Forrester D. Rupp
 
 
  
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