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

[Paul Dutton]

I am a domain name registrant. 

ICANN staff should not unilaterally impose URS in legacy TLDs when that issue is precisely what is being examined by the volunteer ICANN Working Group which has been mandated to review this issue. ICANN policy-making is supposed to be a ‘bottom up, multi-stakeholder model’.

I believe that legacy gTLDs are fundamentally different from for-profit new gTLDs. Legacy TLDs are essentially a public trust, unlike new gTLDs which were created, bought and paid for by private interests. Registrants of legacy TLDs are entitled to price stability and predictability, and should not be subject to price increases with no maximums. Unlike new gTLDs, registrants of legacy TLDs registered their names and made their online presence on legacy TLDs on the basis of price caps continuing to exist.

Unrestrained price increases on the millions of .org registrants who are not-for-profits or non-profits would be unfair to them. Unchecked price increases have the potential to result in hundreds of millions of dollars being transferred from these organizations to one non-profit, the Internet Society, with .org registrants receiving no benefit in return. ICANN should not allow one non-profit nearly unlimited access to the funds of other non-profits.

ICANN appears to be entirely catering to registries by removing price caps. ICANN should stand up for the public interest and registrants! 

Sincerely,
Paul Dutton
Toronto, Ontario
Canada