[Comments-info-renewal-18mar19] NO DOMAIN PRICE INCREASES

[IDOA - Internet Domain Owners Association]

April 29, 2019

To ICANN and the .ORG, .INFO and .BIZ registries (and to all other  
registries):

CEASE AND DESIST NOTICE

Any regulation, rule or law which allows anyone (including ICANN, and  
/ or any registry) to raise the price of any domain above the initial  
price paid for the domain is fraudulent and should be understood as  
illegal. It is an uncompetitive and unfair business practice, and  
amounts to the operation of a monopoly, and US anti-trust laws and  
civil and criminal procedure should prohibit and such action.

Neither I, nor the company I founded, have ever agreed to any price  
increase over the original price paid to register a domain. The fact  
that a domain must be renewed does not imply our acceptance of the  
legality of an increased price, but rather your fraudulent and unfair  
business practices and monopoly practices. We have had to keep  
renewing our domains or lose them, so we have had no alternative but  
to renew them for higher prices and expect to be refunded every penny  
paid over the original purchase price once a competent and fair and  
just court understands and decides in this continuing matter.

No one goes into business in a competitive market unless they can  
understand their costs; To allow a registry to increase costs over the  
originally agreed-to price (which is an agreement to pay a specific  
price every year for the infinite future) is already a very serious  
financial commitment. We business-people will not allow a for-profit  
(or any type of) registry to continue raising the annual price of such  
a business asset. That would be agreeing to fraudulent theft from  
one's own business - nothing any American or other nations' citizen  
should ever agree to. It is, in fact, shameful that this is happening  
at all, and ICANN has the shame for being "in bed" with the registries  
in this matter, rather than representing the real backbone of the  
Internet- the millions of domain name owners (that you still call  
Registrants) who have paid for domain names, web hosting services,  
website construction and web app construction services, web  
advertising and web marketing, etc.  These are the drivers of the  
economy and the Internet, not the cash cow monopolistic registries.

We expect a competent court to recognize a real ownership interest in  
a domain name by the registrant, as common law already has, and this  
means that the price paid to register a domain name is the price that  
must be paid annually for as long as the domain owner/registrant  
wishes to keep the domain name. It's as simple as that.

Please stop this theft, this fraud and these unfair and uncompetitive  
business practices in allowing registries to change prices for domains  
already registered, and start the massive refund process for every  
price increase over the $6 original fee for a year of domain name  
ownership.

Sincerely,

Matt Hooker
Founder IDOA
Internet Domain Owners Association
Info at IDOA.info
Contact at IDOA.info
-- 
IDOA.info
the Internet Domain Owners Association
info at IDOA.info