[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Price cap

[Peter Taylor]

The proposal to remove the price cap on .org registration seems to be
unnecessary and unreasonable, and the justification given seems to be
back-to-front.

In evidence that it is unnecessary, one need merely observe that the
registry has not found it necessary to increase prices up to the cap
of the previous agreement. No argument has been given for why running
a registry could be anticipated to suddenly become more expensive.

As for reasonableness, one should consider the expectations of
registrants and the power balance between registry and registrants. If
the registry should choose to raise prices by orders of magnitude, the
only options for existing registrants would be to capitulate and pay
up or to spend even more on migration to a different TLD: the leverage
is entirely one-sided. Registrants can reasonably expect ICANN to act
in the interests of the many and not the few by maintaining the
current stability mechanisms in the new agreement.

Indeed, it is disappointing that the base registry agreement should
not favour the many over the few, and this is what I mean when I say
that the justification seems to be back-to-front. Equitable treatment
would be equally well served, if not better, by requiring price
stability in all gTLDs.