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

[Mueller, Milton L]

I read that. I agree with you that it would be better to notify registrants. But what you seem to overlook is how competitive and commoditized the registrar market is. If PIR has to notify registrars and guarantee the same wholesale rate to all registrars and then give them the chance to renew org domains for up to 10 years you can be damn sure the registrars are going to immediately notify their customers and take in the money from the hundreds of customers.

So, how is this a drastic worsening of org owners interests compared to a guaranteed 10% price increase under caps?

Milton L Mueller
Professor, School of Public Policy
Georgia Institute of Technology

On Apr 29, 2019, at 22:54, Kathy Kleiman <kathy at dnrc.tech<mailto:kathy at dnrc.tech>> wrote:


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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