[Comments-com-amendment-3-03jan20] Letter to ICANN and Mrs. Namazi

[Daniel Scrugham]

Dear Mrs. Namazi and ICANN,

My name is Daniel Scrugham and I live in Knoxville, TN. I am writing to
provide my thoughts about the new .COM Amendment (Amendment 3) that is
being considered.

As a seventeen-year-old podcaster, it is difficult to get regular internet
traffic. However, I have been successful in driving traffic to my podcast
website, earlyinvestingpodcast.com. As you know, .COMs are by far the most
widely used address, and unless you are a nonprofit, you must have a .COM
in order for people to visit your website. I was able to start my podcast
cheaply due to the low price of the .COM. This has allowed me to deliver
great podcasts and build my audience.

Unfortunately, adopting the new Amendment 3 will result in my annual
renewal price will be driven up dramatically. This will be
especially devastating for me as a seventeen-year-old who runs a free
podcast. I use my website to serve people and I have not made much money
from it (I have overall lost money). If this amendment is adopted, it will
be far more difficult to justify operating this website, plus others I have
plans for with different domains.

I know ICANN will benefit from this amendment and gain $20 million dollars
over the next five years, and I am sure you all will use that money well
and it would be a great benefit to you and your organization. However, it
will come at the expense of tens of thousands of regular people like me who
own domains and try to do good to the world with our domains. The majority
of internet content today is created for free, and this new amendment will
sharply decrease creativity and the magic that goes into making the
internet so special.

I urge you to not allow this amendment to pass, for the sake of not only
the hard-working content creators but the billions of viewers who greatly
benefit from free content online.

Sincerely,

*Daniel Scrugham, Host of Early Investing Podcast*
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