[Comments-com-amendment-3-03jan20] Please adopt price controls on .COM and other original TDLs

[Brian Hilmers]

ICANN,

Please adopt price controls on .COM and other original TDLs. I run a 
small web development & hosting company part-time and many of the sites 
I build are for disadvantaged and/or low-income persons who are using 
their domains to promote small business efforts. These are yoga 
instructors, independent contractors, seniors, students, artists and 
musicians -- all of whom enjoy the legitimacy of having a dedicated 
space on the Internet to promote themselves and their contributions to 
society. I enjoy giving them something to be proud of.

I often treat my web development company like a charity and eat a lot of 
the costs, specifically, I maintain ownership of the domains so my 
tech-illiterate clients don't have to be bothered with the burden of 
keeping them registered (for example, a friend lost her domain name and 
it took three years to get it back). Some of these domains I've had for 
nearly 20 years, a long time since I received payment for the web site 
they still use. The slow creep of prices is making it difficult to 
continue what I think is a valuable service to my community. This year 
is the first time I have released domain names because I can't afford 
it. These domains, if my clients allow them to expire, will be basically 
gone forever, swallowed up by domain squatters and ransomed off.

Please help me continue to make the Internet a place for everyone, not 
just giant corporations. Please adopt price controls on common TLDs. 
Thank you,

Brian Hilmers