Re: [ga] Comment Submitted on .biz, .info, and .org contracts

[George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

--- Danny Younger <dannyyounger@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> There will be registrant abuse even with contracts. 

Well-written contracts would reduce this.

> We have a Deletes Consensus Policy that is currently
> being circumvented by almost every single registrar.

Once again, that is because the consensus policy was poorly written. It
didn't take into account how registrars would route around it. A
stronger policy would have prevented the registrars from taking
ownership of expiring domains.
 
> Further, ICANN doesn't give a damn about the
> registrants, and the contracts don't serve to protect
> the registrants -- perhaps you remember this clause: 
> "No Third-Party Beneficiaries. This Agreement shall
> not be construed to create any obligation by either
> ICANN or Registry Operator to any non-party to this
> Agreement, including any registrar or Registered Name
> holder."

Of course I know that clause. That's why registrants, who ultimately
pay for ICANN and registrars, have little voice.
 
> In the long run, I would rather place my trust in free
> market forces than in ICANN to protect the registrant
> interest.

That simply does not follow. Market forces are DRIVING the abuse of
registrants. Simply suggesting that somehow magically registry greed
will disappear tomorrow is saying that market forces will disappear
tomorrow! That's not going to happen. Mark my words, the first thing
that will happen if those contracts are approved is that registry
operators will move to give notice under Exhibit E that the price of
"good" domains will rise to $100,000+ per year. This will force
organizations to abandon their good .biz, .info and .org domains, and
move to  a place with cost certainty. Ironically, this will be .com,
where prices can't rise more than 7% per year! However, once VeriSign
sees what the other registries are able to do, they'll argue for the
ability to price discriminate also.

Hey Vint, what are you going to do if VeriSign is able to price
discriminate on a domain by domain basis, and wants $100 billion per
year to renew their domain? You're big on net-neutrality....do you
think registry operators are too? If they were permitted, as the
proposed contracts seem to allow, to charge more for google.com,
yahoo.com, ebay.com, sex.com ($12 million+ recent sale) or diamond.com
($7.5 million recent sale) than jgjggskjfhgjkshgs.com domain renewals,
do you think VeriSign would act against the interests of its own
shareholders and not extract the absolute maximum that they could?

If ICANN wants to permit price caps to removed, it should let us renew
our domains for a lot longer than the current 10 year maximum. Let us
renew for 100 or even 1000 years. Some of us own extremely valuable
intangible assets, and need the "cost certainty" going forward.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.kirikos.com/