[Comments-com-amendment-3-03jan20] Comments re .com amendment

[Mike Durich]

To Whom It May Concern,

I am a client of NameCheap and they inform me that Versign is going to be paying ICANN $20 million dollars and that Versign will permitted to compete with domain name registrars.  This is appears to be a conflict of interest between Versign and ICANN of Section 1.2  Conflict of Interest Policy.  The $20 million dollars paid to ICANN will get passed to the domain name community – please don’t think that Versign is giving you free money.  This is also an ethical conflict of interest as you claim that you want price competition but NameCheap states that you negotiated this deal in secret.  No deal in history that was done in secret has ever resulted in price competition.  I am sure that a better deal could be discovered if there was public input.  However, I have seen various entities use public comments as public relations and have ignored the public’s concerns.  Hopefully real public input would occur.

No one entity should control the majority of top level domains such as Versign. NameCheap indicates that Verisign controls almost 80% of registrar pricing of domain names.  This is a monopoly.  Monopolies do not result in price competition.  Monopolies result in price increases.  The top level domains should be split between a dozen companies who are forbiden to act as registrars.

Unfortunately, this appears to be a back room deal, if true that it was negotiated in secret, and one that will result in price increases.  Why would it be in the public interest to have Verisign compete with the domain name registrars?

I am sure that another method can be discovered to raise money for expenses that is fair.

Thank you,
Mike V. Durich, Jr.


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