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

Mon Apr 29 21:53:30 EEST 2019

Milton, I showed in a substantial, subsequent email how those comments 
don't actually track the language of 2.10, the pricing provisions of the 
new Registry agreement.  I included each subsection, a summary, and then 
the full contractual language. Ultimately, we have to go with what the 
contract says...

Please see my follow-up email. There is absolutely no provision for 
notification of registrants, unfortunately...

Best, Kathy

On 4/29/2019 10:48 PM, Mueller, Milton L wrote:
>
> In answer to Ayden and Michael I am resending to the list comments Amr 
> made a few days ago. They show how the new Registry Agreement still 
> limits price increases effectively. I guess folks who are panicking 
> about uncontrolled price increases didn’t read the actual registry 
> agreement.
>
> So no, Ayden I am not impressed with the comments of the existing .org 
> registrants because it seems like they are not well-informed - all 
> they hear is the phrase “no more price caps”. Seems like the price 
> increases only affect new registrants.
>
> But why let facts get in the way of your fun, eh?
>
> Milton L Mueller
> Professor, School of Public Policy
> Georgia Institute of Technology
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
>> *From:* Amr Elsadr <aelsadr at icannpolicy.ninja 
>> <mailto:aelsadr at icannpolicy.ninja>>
>> *Date:* April 25, 2019 at 16:33:35 EDT
>> *To:* milton at GATECH.EDU <mailto:milton at GATECH.EDU>
>> *Cc:* NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU 
>> <mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
>> *Subject:* *Re: [Urgent] [Public Comment] Proposed Renewal of .org 
>> Registry Agreement*
>> *Reply-To:* Amr Elsadr <aelsadr at icannpolicy.ninja 
>> <mailto:aelsadr at icannpolicy.ninja>>
>>
>> Hi Milton,
>>
>> If my understanding of Section 2.10 of the Registry Agreement is 
>> correct, registrars can continue to renew existing registrations 
>> without an increase in price following an increase in pricing of new 
>> registrations by the Registry Operator (RO) for a period of up to 10 
>> years. Additionally, ROs are required to have uniform pricing for 
>> registration renewals. This would mean that all renewal prices would 
>> remain unchanged, unless they all change across all registrars 
>> simultaneously.
>>
>> The protections for existing registrants referred to are detailed in 
>> 2.10c of the Registry Agreement. The protection is basically that 
>> registrants have to agree to renewal prices higher than that of the 
>> original registration at the time of the initial registration. It 
>> can’t be forced upon them at a later date. This is meant as a 
>> provision to /“prohibit abusive and/or discriminatory Renewal Pricing 
>> practices imposed by Registry Operator without the written consent of 
>> the applicable registrant at the time of the initial registration of 
>> the domain“/.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Amr
>>
>>> On Apr 25, 2019, at 9:30 PM, Mueller, Milton L <milton at GATECH.EDU 
>>> <mailto:milton at GATECH.EDU>> wrote:
>>>
>>> I agree with the letter’s discussion of URS and other RPMs. I agree 
>>> with Amr that we may need to moderate the language about “unilateral 
>>> ICANN action” however because PIR may indeed have gone along with this.
>>> On the issue of price caps, I think we need some factual 
>>> clarification. If Amr is right and the potential price increases 
>>> only apply to new registrants, then there is much less of an issue. 
>>> The proposed renewal says “Protections for existing registrants will 
>>> remain in place, in line with the base registry agreement.“
>>> What, exactly, are those “protections for existing registrants”?
>>> MM
>>> *From:*NCSG-Discuss <NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU 
>>> <mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>>*On Behalf Of*Amr Elsadr
>>> *Sent:*Thursday, April 25, 2019 10:33 AM
>>> *To:*NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU 
>>> <mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
>>> *Subject:*Re: [Urgent] [Public Comment] Proposed Renewal of .org 
>>> Registry Agreement
>>> 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 <mailto: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>
>>>
>>
-- 
Kathy Kleiman
Visiting Scholar, Center for Information Technology, Princeton University
President (on leave), Domain Name Rights Coalition

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