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Tell HN: Hours left to protest ICANN's plan to uncap prices of legacy TLDs

80 points by wolfgang42 ↗ HN
Starting with .org, .info, and .biz, ICANN is planning to eliminate the 10% annual cap on increases of prices that TLD registry operators can charge for domains, both new and renewals. These TLD registries have a monopoly on the entire TLD (they're who your registrar buys the domain from when you order it), so you can't just switch to a cheaper company without throwing out your entire domain and starting over from scratch on a new one. Large companies may be able to withstand large jumps in prices, but small businesses and individuals will bear the brunt of any increases that occur, increasing the already considerable centralization of the Internet. PIR (who runs .org) already makes $90 million annually from registrations, in exchange for maintaining a database and running some DNS servers.

ICANN is currently holding a public comment period, which closes today at 23:59 UTC for .info and .org, and May 14 for .biz. Read the proposals and submit comments here:

.info: https://www.icann.org/public-comments/info-renewal-2019-03-18-en (comments-info-renewal-18mar19@icann.org)

.org: https://www.icann.org/public-comments/org-renewal-2019-03-18-en (comments-org-renewal-18mar19@icann.org)

.biz: https://www.icann.org/public-comments/biz-renewal-2019-04-03-en (comments-biz-renewal-03apr19@icann.org)

Help keep the Internet open to all!

11 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 18.0 ms ] thread
wolfgang42
More discussions and posts about this proposal:

https://www.namecheap.com/blog/keep-domain-prices-in-check/

http://www.circleid.com/posts/20190423_spurious_justificatio... (discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19767977 )

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/04/23/2330210/icann-propo...

My own comment, discussing concerns about centralization and ICANN's original mission statement: https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/comments-info-renewal-18mar19...

ohashi
Nat Cohen (who wrote the circleid article) is an amazing proponent of registrant's rights. Disclosure, I've had the pleasure of working with him a lot and calling him a friend.
cVwEq
I was completely unaware of this proposed change, and can see big problems for individuals/small businesses if they end up implementing this. I've submitted a comment via email.
fxfan
I never thought I'd oppose he decision of transferring ICANN control to outside of USA- it seemed increasingly and inevitably for the greater good. now I'm no longer so sure why it was done.
ohashi
So they could rob everyone blind and not be accountable to anyone.
skullum
I can't understand their reasoning. Why would they need an unlimited price cap on gTLDs? I can't imagine their expenses are that high and they're a non-profit so whats the incentive to increase gTLD pricing?
marcinzm
Probably the usual, the people running the non-profit have financial ties (direct or indirect) to the people who'd make money from increasing the price cap.
ohashi
I did some quick analysis...

7/20 ICANN board members have ties to Internet Society (which manages PIR - the .ORG registry), to PIR directly or NeuStar (managing .biz registry). That was just from reading their bios on ICANN.

4/8 PIR members were connected to ICANN previously or are still active in some capacity (including former board member and former liaison to the board).

icebraining
It seems their argument is that the New TLDs (the program they created that allowed the creation of .donut and .pepsi and such) doesn't have these limits, and it's unfair to the companies running the "old" TLDs that they do.

Which is a terrible argument, not just because an answer could be "then impose limits on new TLDs", but also because those new TLDs are new products which those companies have to pay for, market, etc, whereas the companies running the old TLDs are just maintaining something that was created by the public.

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