PALM BEACH – On June 30, 2019, ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) announced that it had renewed its Registry Agreement with Public Interest Registry which operates the .org top-level domain.
At major issue was whether the agreement would be renewed “as-is” with long-standing price caps removed. After public outcry a comment period was held with just six (“6”) [about 0.18%] out of 3,252 comments being in favor of removing the price caps; obviously the comment period served little to no purpose.
Do you see that above graph? So much for public comment. What for?
Some of the companies who took the time to write in with strong opposition to the removal of price caps where non-profit organizations such as NPR (National Public Radio), YMCA OF THE USA, C-SPAN, National Geographic Society, AARP and scores more which suggest that no matter what was written in, ICANN was intent on moving forward with the removal of price caps anyway.
A portion of a comment from NPR and undersigned by supporters said:
The reasonable expectation of .org registrants was, and continues to be, that prices would remain capped to ensure stable and reasonable domain name pricing for the millions of nonprofit organizations that have invested in a .org web presence. These organizations put their trust in ICANN as caretaker of the public interest in the .org name space.
National Public Radio
Thousands of other comments like it stressing to ICANN that domain owners, especially non-profits whom invested in their .org names, should have a “reasonable expectation of affordability and stability” went disregarded.
Public Interest Registry will now be the sole decision maker to when and if price increases will be implemented for .org domain name registrations and renewals, depending on ‘good timing’ of course. It probably won’t happen right away, but inevitably, it will happen.
Sort of makes you wonder what’s going to happen in round two doesn’t it?
About The Author: John Colascione is Chief Executive Officer of Internet Marketing Services Inc. He specializes in Website Monetization, is a Google AdWords Certified Professional, authored a ‘how to’ book called ”Mastering Your Website‘, and is a key player in several Internet related businesses through his search engine strategy brand Searchen Networks®
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