Please ICANN, Don't Allow This Attempt at a Monopoly Money Grab to Pass
Sorry for posting here as well. I am assuming that each contract is separate. Thx. To the ICANN Board, As part of the new registry contract terms shown at http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-2-28jul06.htm it is stated that you are "Lifting... Price Controls...". Why would you allow that? No price limits at all in an industry where costs of providing services are coming down every year? With all due respect, this casts a suspicious pall over the ICANN board and does not make sense. Since domain names have become so important to the identities of businesses and non-profits as a whole and since registries fall under the category of natural monopolies, this sets a dangerous precedent that puts registries in the position of being able to abuse that power. Businesses and non-profits spend considerable time and dollars promoting their domain names and they can't buy their particular domain name from any other registry once they have chosen which domain name to use and promote. So once you give a registry exclusive rights to operate a top level domain, it is not proper to grant them unlimited power to raise prices. Natural market forces are a good thing, and the fact that a healthy aftermarket has developed in domain names is a good sign for the Internet and for the Internet industry History has proven however, that giving unnatural and unlimited pricing power to monopolies is unhealthy for any industry. The operation of a registry in a top level domain is a natural monopoly and should have reasonable controls, especially when it comes to pricing. One could argue that a registrant can easily go to another top level domain and so a registry is not a monopoly, but that argument does not hold water. The cost of promoting most domain names and the importance of the brand to the long term basic existence of any business or non-profit is too high. So to give these natural monopolies unlimited power to raise their prices on generic top level domains brings about the potential for gross injustices and problems for ICANN in the future. I would like to ask you to change any provision that allows unlimited price raises for generic top level domains by a monopoly registry. Please change this so as to limit potential price increases by any registry that is given the privilege to run a generic top level domain. It is better NOT to leave that to chance on such an important public resource. Sincerely, Joe Alagna _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live Spaces is here! It?s easy to create your own personal Web site. http://spaces.live.com/signup.aspx |