[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Comment on proposed changes to the .org registry agreement

[Matt Kornegay]

Dear ICANN,

I am a .org registrant and a not-for-profit or non-profit organization. 

Legacy gTLDs are fundamentally different from for-profit new gTLDs and should be treated that way. Legacy TLDs are what the internet was built on. They are essentially a public trust. They are very different than new gTLDs which were created, bought and paid for by private parties. Registrants of these legacy extensions should be entitled to price predictability & stability.

Advancements in technology should be driving the cost of operating a registry down, yet prices keep going up? Removing price caps is unfair to the millions of domain registrants. They will have no price protections. Every registrant will be at the complete mercy and whims of the registry. This could result in a transfer of funds from millions of non-profits to one non-profit, with no benefits to the domain registrants.

ICANN is supposed to represent a "bottom up, consensus-driven multistakeholder model". ICANN should not unilaterally impose URS in legacy TLDs when that issue is precisely what is being examined by the volunteer ICANN Working Group who has been mandated to review this issue.

ICANN should be looking out for the .org registrants, in particular the non-profits. There is no "public benefit" justification to these changes. It is just a handout to business at the expense of registrants’ rights and protections. Where are the protections for the millions of domain registrants that this could effect in a negative way? These changes would give way too much power to the registry. This is not acceptable for a "public benefit" organization that exists to represent many stakeholders.

Please do not allow caps to be lifted on .org domains and also remove the 10% increase. This will significantly impact non-profits (that already have a limited budget) and their ability to afford TLDs. It will also cause organizations not to be able to secure other TLDs because they are not available (ex. .coms, .nets, etc). Think about all the marketing and printing that goes into a change like this too. Very costly. You could bankrupt nonprofits on this one bad decision. 

Please, please keep this from happening. This will impact my organization and the ones we work with in a huge negative way and ultimately cause our online presence to disappear. 

The ripple affect of a decision like this will be felt all over the world. 

Thanks,

Matt Kornegay
Reach Recovery & CG Design


Matt Kornegay