The proposed changes to the .biz, .info and .org registry agreements
are entirely unacceptable, for all the same reasons that have been
expressed in the past over the .com proposed settlement with VeriSign
(see
www.cfit.info or the comment board for the .com settlement
proposal). While the existing ICANN Board might have foolishly accepted
those terms, over the nearly unanimous protest of the broader
community, the .com proposed agreement has yet to even be approved by
the Department of Commerce. It is amusing to see the registry operators
for .biz, .info and .org racing to try to capitalize upon a lame duck
ICANN Board. The composition of the ICANN Board will change due to the
end of term of various board members, and next year the votes that
approved the .com settlement might by very different. These registry
operators have not even waited to see if the changes to the .com
agreement will be formally accepted by the DoC, and stand up to
litigation.
This should be a lesson to the Board that bad decision-making has many
consequences. This is further justification for continuing oversight of
ICANN.
Furthermore, if ICANN accepts these contractual changes before the DoC
has spoken, all hell will break loose, because VeriSign will then have
the argument that they're only seeking what other registries have been
granted. But, isn't that the argument of the .biz, .info, and .org
operators? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
ICANN should not be in the business of creating perpetual unregulated
monopolies via the granting of presumptive renewal without price caps.
As has been said before by others, registry operators can have a
choice. They can have presumptive renewal, but with price controls
based on cost recovery (i.e. like a utility). Or, they can have no
price controls, but be subject to a regular rebidding process (where a
fixed price during the term of the contract exists). But, to give the
registry operators both presumptive renewal AND no price controls
boggles the mind. Have ICANN staff and Board members ever taken a
single business course? Have they ever studied economics? This is basic
first principles stuff. It is clear that the people negotiating on
behalf of the registry operators have studied economics, as they are
winning big with these proposed changes, and will see their profits
rise substantially, at the community's expense. ICANN loses its
legitimacy as a representative of the community when it knowingly
permits this to happen to the detriment of registrants.
Essentially, these new agreements have the effective of SELLING .biz,
.info, and .org gTLDs to the existing registry operators, without any
form of auction, but simply through a poor negotiation. Even Tuvalu
*sold* .tv, yet ICANN simply gives away the TLD!
Just to see how terrible the new proposed contracts are, which entirely
lift price controls (which is more freedom than even VeriSign gets, who
can't raise prices more than 7% per year), I could not find anything in
the new contract to even compel the registries to charge a fixed price
per domain name! There is reference to "Exhibit E", but there is
nothing preventing the registry operators from changing the simple
formula in Exhibit E into a more complex formula or a domain-by-domain
list, to price discriminate on the basis of the quality of the domain
name, or any other basis (e.g. maybe the registry does not like the
current registrant, and wants to charge them more money). Thus, the
registries could emulate .tv, and charge more for sex.biz or sex.info
or business.info or games.info than lesser quality domains. The
registry could put into Exhibit E that sex.info or sex.biz or sex.org
are $100,000 per year. Since section 3.1(b)(v)(B) prohibits consensus
policies from touching upon "pricing", it's .TV all over again.
This is what happens when you have a staff and Board which is out of
touch with registrants.
For all the above reasons, these proposed agreements should be
rejected.
