[Comments-com-amendment-3-03jan20] ICANN Contract changes

[Thomas]

This is a horrible deal and one that will impact everyone with a website,
especially individuals and small business owners.

1. Price increases up to 70% over ten years. Verisign will be allowed to
increase the wholesale price to registrars for .COM domains by 7% each year
in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. After a two year “freeze”, Verisign can
increase prices by 7% annually during 2026-2029, then another two year
“freeze”. This cycle will continue, meaning that within 10 years, .COM
domains could cost approximately 70% more than the current wholesale price
of $7.85 — and the sky is the limit.
2. ICANN receiving $20 Million dollars additional - With the contract
changes, Verisign agreed to pay ICANN an additional $20 million dollars
over five years to support ICANN’s initiatives regarding the security and
stability of the domain name system. There is no explanation why Verisign
did this, how ICANN will spend the money, or who will ensure that the funds
are properly spent.
3. Verisign Can Operate as a Domain Registrar - This result is that the
company that controls almost 80% of the registrar pricing for domain names
will compete directly with all domain registrars, maximizing its control of
domain name pricing to the detriment of other competing registrars. While
this might result in lower prices to consumers, fewer registrars will harm
competition, choice, and domain name services.
4. ICANN Ignored Previous Comments
As detailed on Standing Up to ICANN to Keep Domain Prices in Check and
pricecaps.org, over 3,500 comments were submitted in support of price
controls for the .ORG, .INFO, and .BIZ TLDs. Only six comments supported
removing price controls. ICANN discounted the comments that were in favor
of maintaining price caps. A number of the comments were submitted using an
online tool, which caused the comments to be discounted as “spam” by the
ICANN Ombudsman.

ICANN removed the price caps, primarily relying upon a biased preliminary
analysis from 2009 by an economics professor that did not reference any
data.

This is a disaster and not the type of positive change domain owners want
to see.
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