[Comments-org-renewal-18mar19] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement

[Niklas Matthies]

I am a .org registrant. 

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.

Best regards,
Niklas Matthies