Has anyone else seen the new ICAAN contract being discussed, supposedly could get signed tomorrow, for .org/.biz/.info domains...? There's a Digg story on it here: http://digg.com/tech_news/IMPORTANT_ICANN_to_allow_variable_pricing_of_ORG_BIZ_INFO But I think it got buried, because when I search on either [domain] or [icann] it doesn't show, at all. It's a discussion I caught at WMW, and I think a few people blogged about it, but mostly it seems to be happening unnoticed. From what I gather, this could mean the downfall of non-big business sites... -Michael
They want to lift the price controls, folks. Section 3.1(b)(v) of the proposed .org agreement states that there will be no limit to the price of registration services. You have until 5:00 PM PDT (California) on 28 August 2006 to comment on the proposed agreements. Comments will then be presented to the ICANN Board of Directors for consideration at its meeting on September 13th. .com, .net will be next. The proposed agreements, appendices, address to comment, and posted comments can be viewed from this link: http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-2-28jul06.htm And the story is getting buried as spam at digg, but you can make a difference here. If this agreement is signed, the sky is the limit on the price of registering new domains and renewing existing ones...
Yeah, apparently it was too hard for some of those guys to figure out how to click the "Continue on to post" link when you're not logged in. Either way, for those who might be familiar with how the current .tv pricing structure works (freeform, no limits) you could see where this would inevitably go. Hmm... I wonder how much they think Scientology.org should renew for...? -Michael
One of the comments I read asked if ICANN would be willing to pay bigtime for icann.org... You have to understand, it will punch the prices up majorly. When you consider the differences in income around the world, we Americans, English, Australians, etc. might be able to pay $50 - $100 for a domain. And they are not just doing this to .biz and .info... .org, used primarily for non-profit and charitable organizations, is having price caps lifted. It will be used as a model for .com and .net when those contracts renew. What about those in lesser economic power countries? It makes the entry price for a website skyrocket for them. Imagine having to put 2 weeks hard earned income out to get a domain... And for those of you who think the organizations would not abuse the system... check out the Stop Verisign Abuse Petition.
I strongly object to the Lifting of Price Controls on Registry Services. This will create a situation where registries can arbitrarily set pricing and perhaps be able to extort fees from those who own or propose to own domains based on the registries assessment of the value of a domain name. This will and can only be for the expressed purpose of infringing on a domains owners ability to profit. This will allow registries to take advantage of the hard working domain owners who in no way should be forced to share profit based on this proposed pricing model or any arbitrary assessment of the value of someone else's business and or domain name. This is sanctioned domain squatting which is already illegal as I understand it. This will create a situation where only business which are rich can buy domains and impede the ability for small business to flourish or to be started at all on the Internet. This is corporate greed and should not be allowed.
Between this and net neutrality the governments of the world are preparing fo bend most of us over and stick it to us. You are right about some third world webmasters getting hit even harder.. I dont know if two weeks income would be enough...it may be more like two months income from some of the " Im making $1.00 per day " posts we see for adsense revs Politicians and large organizations suck.... worldwide!!!!!
Not just small businesses, what about people's personal pages? All of those family albums, blogs, hobby sites, etc? Free script sites that only ask for a link back and don't display ads? They're trying to say that since you have the option of paying 10 years in advance that doesn't matter, but that's complete bs. I own 12 educational sites that don't make any money, and I personally don't have $3k to front for them at them moment, should it become necessary. I mean, they don't get a ton of traffic, but whose to say that the registry wouldn't look at beginnerwriting.com and say that based on the domain name alone it should be worth a couple of grand? Also, Shawn, if you're reading... do you think 10 years is long enough to be able to extend dp? Or do you think that they should have the right to make you pay $2.5 million for the renewal after that if they so choose, based solely on what you've done with it? -Michael
Very good comments, noppid. Did you post them yet? There is an address here: http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-2-28jul06.htm
Yes, I sent them to all three addresses. Please feel free to copy and paste them and send them in as soon as possible. This must be stopped or at least they must be put on notice that we recognize this is extortion and in no way shape or form benefits the Internet.
I'm admittedly confused about this, based on the link provided. Maybe I need more coffee this morning but the proposals seem rather non-specific to me. Where is there anything in there about charging 2.5 million dollars for anything? I see something about small increments of like 15 to 20 cents in transaction fees starting in 2007. Also, this seems to apply only to .biz, .info, and .org domains. And finally, what about the competition factor? Won't that be inclined to regulate the fees charged?
The 15 - 20 cents is the registry-level fee paid to ICANN by the registry operator. It is a small pittance, most registrars include it automatically. I think GoDaddy and a few others actually show the amount as a surcharge. Currently, yes, it is only .org, .biz, .info domains. The price regulations imposed by ICANN on the gTLD registry operators is being lifted. There is no competition within a tld... they can charge registrars anything they want, and that cost will be passed on to you. There are only a limited number of names within a tld... competition between gTLD's will keep it in check somewhat, but we all know that some are more valuable than others for specific purposes. .tv currently works on a non-regulated pricing contract. Checked the price of those domains lately? These agreements set a hell of a precedent, and .com and .net come up for renewal soon. This is why we must comment TODAY on .tld's that may or may not concern us at the moment...
Alot of people seem to be getting this idea... what they are missing is the difference between a registry and a registrar. GoDaddy is a registrar, so is Directnic. If you don't like what your registrar is charging, you can always swicth. This helps keep prices down. The registry is the outfit that all registrars buy their domains from. For any given contract (one for .com, one for .net, and one for .org/.biz/.info, plus the otehr tld's), there is only 1 registry, period. Don't like the prices? Well, you're sol. That's the basic problem. -Michael
OK. I understand what you're saying. I just sent this to all three addresses: Is there anyone else we should be sending such comments to?
Except of course thay are also in competition with the regional TLDs... if they go nuts with .com, they won't have a lot of people staying with .com's - the goose that laid the golden egg syndrome?
Right, and that has some merit, except for this... the various contracts use what is put in other contracts as precence. So, say that the guys who own this one don't go nutz... and then the owners of .com say hey, we should have pricing restrictions lifted as well, since .com's are inherently more valuable, being first... and from there it just explodes. The other tld's start basing their price increases not just on keywords, dictionary words, and traffic/popularity, but also on what .com is charging for similar names based on those sites popularity etc. Then it gets extended to mispellings of popular keywords, fancy spellings (z's instead of s's, etc), and so on. I mean, suppose you think of a catchy domain name that no one ever thought of before, should you have to pay more, because you're creative? -Michael
Consider also that Verisign, the .com and .net tld registry, has already violated the public trust - see the petition link in my above post. There is also within this agreement a 'presumptive renewal' clause. Unless they violate certain sections of the agreement, and are challenged legally, they do not have to do much to continue the agreement. More reading: http://icannwiki.org/ICANN-VeriSign_Settlement http://www.gtldregistries.org/news/2006/2006-02-20-01 Great quote from that page (signed by the tld operators): I take that to mean that they would rather deal with the courts in many different countries individually than one regulatory body...
I can't find anything on it in the news, does anyone know if this was picked up anywhere? http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=icann -Michael
http://news.google.com/news?q=registry+agreement+org+biz+info Sure looks like US news is ignoring it... Best story: http://www.lse.co.uk/ShowStory.asp?...ered_pricing_coming_to_top-level_domain_names