Taking Action

Here is a post from someone in a domain related forum that will help you to take action if you decide it's worth the effort. THis is very important yet it seems to be losing interest in many forums, even domain forums.

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The agreements are as bad as they look. I am reposting a comment I posted to a similar thread.

The contract as written explicitly allows for prices for renewals for existing registrants to be raised without limit (that means YOU - any holder of .biz/.info/.org domains)

This is significantly worse than the .tv terms where renewals are priced at the original registration fee.

1. This will make the registry your "silent partner" in any internet business. If the business is successful, the registry will raise its renewal prices to confiscate a large amount of the value of your business. Yes, the proposed contract is THAT BAD.

2. It is not an exaggeration to say that this will redistribute the value of any "premium" .info/.org/.biz from the domain registrant to the registry.

I would encourage you not to zone out on this one because it is a "technical" issue. It is a pure and simple hijacking of the value of the domains of all registrants, including those of the members of this board.

I find it a bit sad that the board is merrily going along appraising names while a thread relating to the complete dismantling of the domain system as we know it has comments from about 5 people.

What should you do?

1. Go here to read a summary of the proposed changes and read the public comments to date:

http://www.icann.org/announcements/...t-2-28jul06.htm

Many major firms like Godaddy, Network Solutions and iREIT have already posted extensive and thoughtful objections.

2. Once you have read the comments, post an additional public comment of your own objecting to these contracts. If you are not certain what to write, just write something along the following lines.
"
To the Board of Directors of ICANN,

I am writing to note my strong objection to the terms and conditions of the proposed contracts for the .info/.biz/.org TLD.

In particular the elimination of price caps, the introduction of tiered pricing and the strengthening of presumptive renewal are terms that are not in the best interest of registrants and will hinder the growth and development of online businesses.

I strongly urge to you to reject these contracts and re-start the negotiation process taking into account the upcoming recommendations of your own policy committee (GNSO) and to advocate strongly for the interests of the broad internet community to produce a balanced and fair contract.

Respectfully,

YOUR NAME
"

Note that there is an email confirmation process you have to go through for your email to be posted.

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