[Comments-com-amendment-3-03jan20] Proposed Amendment 3 to the .COM Registry Agreement

[Greg Hammel]

ICANN and Verisign Inc. in the new world (information age) of the 
internet sound very much like the railroads in the old world (industrial 
age). Both ICANN and Verisign Inc. have “natural monopolies” which came 
from government authorizations, just like the railroads did.Private 
contracts are very difficult things to find out about.Finances are 
difficult to unravel.From what little I know, it appears that ICANN and 
Verisign Inc. are more, but not much more transparent than the 
railroads’ private contracts and finances.

Individuals within the corporations which owned the railroads became 
very wealthy largely due to insider private contracts and opaque 
financial transactions.The railroads ended up being regulated by the 
federal and state governments because of their “natural monopolies” and 
their regard for personal profit over public welfare. In other words, in 
the industrial age the government gave the railroads a monopoly, 
protected that monopoly, allowed greed to run rampant until it became 
repeatedly painfully obtuse, then regulated them.This is a similar 
situation, not exact, to the monopoly the government has allowed ICANN 
and Verisign, Inc. to have in the information age.History repeats itself.

I have legitimate and reasonable concerns that the monopoly (ICANN and 
Verisign Inc.) that the government has allowed to govern the domain area 
will result in higher prices to the consumer.Unfortunately, corporations 
and individuals need to be restrained or greed usually prevails.Put 
price restraints of some sort on increases for domain names.

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