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<p>Hello,</p>
<p>As current board member of Wrocław Hackerspace, I have to express
a deep concern on the proposed change.<br>
hswro.org was the "home" of our organization since the very
beginning, on which all our infrastructure and reputation relies.</p>
<p>By giving up the price constraints on .org domains, renewal
prices may rise sharply, as .org registry (PIR) is de facto a
monopoly, and can dictate the prices.<br>
As NGOs typically have limited budget (like our local
hackerspace), they may effectively be forced to change the domain,
which contrary to your idea,<br>
isn't painless process, as domain name is a very important part of
the organization's reputation. Rebranding is a very painful
process.</p>
<p>You suggested that Red Cross might migrate from "redcross.org" to
"redcross.info". The effort invested into current domain is
enormous, and migrating into another TLD would mean a huge campain
to make people know the new location.<br>
This includes rebuilding reputation in search engines from
scratch. Many non-profit organizations hosted in .org simply do
not have money to do that, and sharp price increase is likely to
hit their budgets, given that trustee maintaining the prices has
given up, totally failing its function. This is a very real
concern, since each gTLD registry is effectively a monopoly, and
can dictate the prices. You cannot register a domain in one TLD by
means of other registry, you have to adhere to their rules, or
register your domain in another TLD.</p>
<p>Even the organizations who have maxed out their domains validity
in time will be hit by this change in the future, as they will
eventually have to renew the domain.</p>
<p>Being an non-profit organization yourself, I hope you can put
yourselves in the shoes of smaller organizations, and maintain the
trustee function of legacy TLDs.</p>
<p>With kind regards,<br>
Lech<br>
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