[Urgent] [Public Comment] Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement

[Michael Karanicolas]

Hi Amr,

Thanks very much for this valuable feedback. Just a small point of
clarification - any price rises, if they occur, will impact incumbent
registrants (though, they have an option of locking in current prices by
purchasing a longer term package).

To me, it's less about the status of PIR as a non-profit (which of course
we wouldn't want to penalize) and more about the status of .Org as a home
for non-profits, which I think distinguishes it from other domains, and
which, I think, does support treatment that's different from what we would
expect for traditional commercial domains. But I agree it's a tough issue,
and I think the current language is meant to approach things cautiously
from that perspective - recognizing a need to adapt to market forces, while
still keeping the door open for some controls, or a review of the impact on
registrations.

Would be very interested to hear others' thoughts on this, as I think it's
a tricky one.

Best,

Michael

On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 11:33 AM Amr Elsadr <aelsadr at icannpolicy.ninja>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Thanks for sharing this, Rafik. Speaking for myself, I very much agree
> with the comment on adding the new gTLD Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs)
> to the PIR contract for .org at this time. As the draft comment rightly
> points out, these RPMs will not actually be Consensus Policies until after
> the ICANN Board adopts the recommendations of the Review of all RPMs in all
> gTLDs PDP Working Group, and should not apply to any of the legacy gTLDs,
> including .org. However to characterize the decision to do so as a
> unilateral ICANN decision is something I’m not sure of. I presume that PIR
> negotiated this with ICANN before the public comment period began? I might
> be wrong, as I’m making an assumption here.
>
> To be clear, the RPMs that would be applicable here (if I’m not mistaken)
> are the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) and the Trademark Claims RPM (part
> of the Trademark Clearing House), but not the Sunrise Registrations RPM,
> obviously, since .org has been around for a while.
>
> Substantively, I don’t believe the URS will be much of an issue, since it
> is largely deemed to be an unappealing mechanism for use by Trademark
> holders, as the stats and anecdotal evidence that has been shared to date
> indicate. The impact of Trademark Claims, on the other hand, might be very
> different, and prior to it being reviewed by the RPMs PDP, and adopted as
> an ICANN policy, I don’t believe adding it to the .org contract in a
> renewal is a good move.
>
> On the second issue, where the draft comment disagrees with removing price
> caps for .org registrations, I’m pretty sure I don’t agree with the
> rationale or conclusion. I don’t believe PIR’s status as a non-profit
> entity justifies this. IMO, it imposes unreasonable obligations on PIR that
> other Registry Operators are not subject to, so effectively penalizing PIR
> for its status, and its continued mission to *“support many excellent
> causes”*, as pointed out in the draft.
>
> Furthermore, there is little to no evidence that I can see (at least in
> the draft) that registrants of .org domain names will be negatively
> impacted by removal of the price cap. My understanding is that this will
> mainly impact new registrations, not existing ones, but this isn’t
> addressed at all.
>
> To me, PIR needs to set its own price taking in to consideration their own
> consumer base. If they make bad decisions that drive their customers away,
> I don’t believe this will negatively impact registrants as much as it would
> PIR itself, especially considering that there are over a thousand gTLDs for
> registrants to migrate to, should they choose to do so.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Amr
>
> On Apr 25, 2019, at 3:59 PM, Rafik Dammak <rafik.dammak at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> We have a suggested draft comment ( attached) on proposed renewal of .org
> agreement  https://www.icann.org/public-comments/org-renewal-2019-03-18-en
> . The deadline for submission is the 29th April and for NCSG PC to review
> and endorse. Please share your comments abd input.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Rafik
> <Org Letter Rev.docx>
>
>
>
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