[CPWG] [GTLD-WG] renewal of .org registry

Mon Apr 29 23:16:47 UTC 2019

Bastiaan,
I understand your point about not justifying the removal of the price cap - although I believe that we should try to converge to uniformity of contracts.
However, I was concentrating on the fear for abnormal raises, and my main point is that as a registrant I do not share this fear about .org. As I mentioned in a previous message, I have also .eu domains. ICANN has no control on those, as for any ccTLD, as a matter of fact - however, I have heard of no issue about ccTLDs not having price caps while this seems to be a major problem for .org, although the switching cost of moving away from a ccTLD would not be less than the switching cost of moving away from .com. This makes me think that the reasons for this abnormal reactions lie somewhere else, for instance in the secondary market dynamics.
Cheers,
Roberto

> On 29.04.2019, at 07:57, Bastiaan Goslings <bastiaan.goslings at ams-ix.net> wrote:
> 
> Thanks, Roberto
> 
> (I am jumping into this quite late, have not read the renewal proposal, and have been following the discussion from a distance.)
> 
> Pragmatically speaking I share your feelings with regard to 'registries that are responsible and are not going to do things that I would qualify as “silly”, like proceed with an exceptional raise od price’, however it seems to me that would only be applicable after the fact. Same for the expected limited 'effect of the raise of the price of a .org domain name on NGOs and small non-profits’.
> 
> IMO it does not argue for nor justifies removing the price cap in the .org Registry Agreement. I have not seen anyone explain _why_ this in itself would be beneficial. Unless I missed something.
> 
> regards,
> Bastiaan
> 
> 
> ***  Please note that this communication is confidential, legally privileged, and subject to a disclaimer: https://www.ams-ix.net/ams/email-disclaimer  ***
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On 29 Apr 2019, at 00:13, Roberto Gaetano <roberto_gaetano at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> So, here is my comment.
>> Just to be clear, I am not submitting any “official” comment, but would like to point out a couple of elements that have been touched in this discussion.
>> As disclosure, but you all probably know that, I am a member of the PIR Board and a member of the EURALO Board, so my point of view might well be affected by these roles I play. However, I would like to speak in my capacity of domain registrant.
>> I do own several domain names, all of them under .org or .eu. I am not at all afraid about potential raise of price of neither, because in both cases I do believe that these names are managed by registries that are responsible and are not going to do things that I would qualify as “silly”, like proceed with an exceptional raise od price. In the case of PIR, I would like to point out that the registry had the possibility, already under the current contract, to raise prices yearly - but has done it only in a small number of cases. Every time there has been a raise the matter has been discussed thoroughly by the Board, who has analysed the pros and cons, taking into account the potential benefits, the impact on the market, the impact on the image of the company. I don’t understand what would let us assume that, just because the new contract will give this possibility, PIR would change the behaviour it had over years and proceed to unmotivated raises, moreover if of unreasonable amount. I personally believe that to consider this as a possibility is disingenuous to say the least.
>> A second point is the effect of the raise of the price of a .org domain name on NGOs and small non-profits. Do we really think that for creating and maintaining an Internet presence the yearly fee for a domain name plays a relevant role?
>> The other criticism I have heard is about feeding ISOC - for instance, it has been said that more money to ISOC has resulted in increase in staff. This is probably true, but what really matters is what ISOC does for the Internet community - and in particular for underserved regions or users. A large amount of money goes to finance the IETF: my question is whether folks would prefer to have less funding to the IETF and therefore obliging the standardisation body to rely on contribution by the industry to develop standards? Would that really be better than having a couple of bucks of contribution by NGOs on their domain name - which, incidentally, is a rounding error in terms of cost for the IT infrastructure - and this even assuming that PIR would raise the price in the future, which is not at all a sure thing? Another question that I would ask is whether people know about projects, financed by ISOC, like the Tusheti Project that has brought the internet in a region in Georgia that was isolated from the rest of the country because of the difficulty of connecting it? Again, this is possible because some of the money that registrants pay for a .org domain name goes to financing projects like these. Of course, to coordinate more activities requires more staff. So what?
>> Last but not least, my personal opinion is that moving to a situation where the whole gTLD galaxy ends up in having the same contract provisions would be a good thing in a globalized market. I am much more worried about the registries that are not subject to common rules, like ccTLDs, who can for instance use practices banned by SSAC like the wildcard, rather than having a handful of “legacy” TLDs compliant with the contract that everybody else has. But, as I said, this is just my personal opinion as an Internet user and domain name registrant.
>> Best regards,
>> Roberto
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On 26.04.2019, at 16:17, Maureen Hilyard <maureen.hilyard at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Thank you Roberto.
>>> 
>>> On Fri, 26 Apr 2019, 1:51 AM Roberto Gaetano, <roberto_gaetano at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hi Jacqueline, and all.
>>> I would love to be able to comply with your request. I do indeed have my own opinion, and in the coming weekend - I am now under pressure for other things - I will express it.
>>> However, as many of you know, the PIR Board has passed a motion to remove me as Board Chair in summer 2018, so I am under the impression that I am not well positioned to act as “speaker" for the PIR Board.
>>> This said, I promise to speak up, with the caveat that I will comment on the content of the agreement and the impact (from my point of view) on users and non-for-profit organization, not on anything else.
>>> Cheers,
>>> Roberto
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On 26.04.2019, at 12:56, Jacqueline Morris <jam at jacquelinemorris.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Maureen, well said.
>>>> I would love to hear from the PIR Board as to their take on this.
>>>> Jacqueline
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Thu, Apr 25, 2019, 3:48 PM Maureen Hilyard <maureen.hilyard at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> I am against any price changes being allowed for legacy domains and I know that the DotAsia Board hasn't authorised any price hikes and we don't have a cap. The recent suggestions of price caps have provided focus on these so that there is a little bit of scaremongering (or "raising awareness" as George prefers to call it) going on I suspect.
>>>> 
>>>>  .org is used by NGOs who would be sorely affected if the cost of  the domain rose significantly.  Interestingly Im on the PIR Advisory Committee and we haven't been notified by the PIR Board of the implications are of a price cap for .org or what their intentions are.
>>>> 
>>>> Maureen
>>>> 
>>>> On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 6:17 AM Marita Moll <mmoll at ca.inter.net> wrote:
>>>> Further to our discussions this week re: renewal of .org registry with removal of price cap -- it appears that there is a well organized campaign going on out there to scare people about potential rate hikes. That probably accounts for all those opposition letters we saw posted on the site that George Kirikos was referring to.
>>>> 
>>>> See blog below:
>>>> 
>>>> https://www.namecheap.com/blog/keep-domain-prices-in-check/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Service_DomPriceIncrease_20190425
>>>> Marita
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
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