[Comments-com-amendment-3-03jan20] Upholding Digital Property Rights

[Wes Bertrand]

As an owner of a couple .com domains, I’m very concerned about the rent-seeking behavior of registries in this essentially captured market. These digital properties (domains) were created years ago and, yet, their owners are still charged yearly to be able to retain their domains. What sense does this make, given the extremely low cost of property rights maintenance in this virtual world?

A unilaterally imposed rental arrangement, much like property taxes in the statist realm, can’t be considered true ownership. And a valid contract would require a meeting of the minds and transparency of pricing alterations during contract renewals. The history of how all this happened and might be changing is unsettling, as this article relates:
https://www.namecheap.com/blog/keep-domain-prices-in-check/

The Internet is supposed to uphold the value of freedom, and ICANN is supposed to be a steward of this. The yearly domain-name “rent” charged by the cartel of registries is costly enough, but its potential limitless rental-price increase represents a complete racket—essentially paying complete strangers an arbitrarily higher price every year in perpetuity! 

Please uphold the values of freedom and justice, so that corruption doesn’t become a way of life here. Certainly there are equitable and fair ways to make property rights work in the digital realm.

Sincerely,
Wes Bertrand