
Spurious Justifications for Eliminating Price Caps on .org and Legacy Domains - wolfgang42
http://www.circleid.com/posts/20190423_spurious_justifications_for_eliminating_caps_on_legacy_domains/
======
techsupporter
Couple of questions:

First, why does ICANN keep insist on picking on .org? In 2004, or thereabouts,
.org owners saw a proposal to restrict that gTLD to just not-for-profit and
community groups. Considering .org was originally listed as the gTLD for "this
doesn't fit into any of the other categories" (back when we actually enforced
that .net be a network operator and .com be a business), this would have
booted a whole lot of individuals and unorganized groups out of the space. It
was also the first gTLD to be foisted onto Verisign, though it got moved to
Public Interest Registry in 2003.

Which brings up the second question, why would PIR want price caps to be
removed for the .org gTLD? PIR is, supposedly, not-for-profit itself and is
owned by the Internet Society, a _very_ not-for-profit group. Shouldn't PIR be
pushing for .org fees to be as low as possible to sustain its mission of
effectively operating the .org gTLD for as many people as it can? Shouldn't
PIR be acting more like a credit union and less like a Verisign?

~~~
techsupporter
I found, in the linked article, a link another article (by the same author)
that answers my second question, why PIR would want price caps to be removed:
[https://domainnamewire.com/2019/04/24/how-icann-uses-the-
org...](https://domainnamewire.com/2019/04/24/how-icann-uses-the-org-registry-
to-fund-the-internet-society/)

My summary of that article is that the article assumes that the Internet
Society (which owns PIR and was given .org as a way to fund ISOC's activities)
has grown large enough--or may eventually grow large enough--that it considers
its current funding levels inadequate and wants the price caps removed so it
can receive even more funding. That article also points out that one non-
profit, ISOC, is largely being funded by payments from other non-profits since
.org is wildly popular in the non-profit space.

~~~
woofie11
I see. The not-for-profit has grown from 8 people to over a hundred, and wants
to become another corrupt, POS not-for-profit focused on executive fiefdoms
and headcount, rather than doing any good.

They have a monopoly position on .org, and so are able to do so if they
choose.

Seems like the right response is to cap price increases to 0%, or at most
inflation, rather than the current 10%.

~~~
Aeolun
That is exactly what I imagined when I read that summary.

Dawut? We might not be able to run a profit, but we can certainly make sure to
spend ever dollar spuriously.

~~~
woofie11
I've been involved in several not-for-profits. The "not able to run a profit"
part is a little bit misleading:

1) Base take-home salary is typically a million dollars for the CEO or similar
senior positions. 2) A senior position also allows for massive additional
sources of income.

Not-for-profits actually have far fewer legal restrictions than for-profits.
For-profits run with a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value (source:
extended conversations with a lawyer specializing in wealth management). If a
not-for-profit engages in research to benefit a board member's business, or
the not-for-profit launches a for-profit subsidiary, or otherwise, all that
seems to be kosher. See Clinton and Trump foundations for an example of how
most not-for-profits work.

------
ridgewell
I saw Derrel Fincher, a Oklahoma House Representative, wrote a comment against
the price cap removal. [1]

This was relatively interesting since I've never seen a politician participate
in such a niche request for comment process.

[1] [https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/comments-org-
renewal-18mar19/...](https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/comments-org-
renewal-18mar19/2019q2/002697.html)

------
goombastic
Every time the basics seem set, a bunch of rent seeking overlords arrive to
destabilize everything. Verisign shouldn't have this power and should be
penalized for trying this trick. They shouldn't be in a position to bottleneck
basic internet infrastructural elements and in the spirit of the internet, we
need alternatives to Verisign setup ASAP. A counter proposal is in order.

------
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC
It's so utterly obvious that this is not really about "allowing the market to
discover prices".

For one, obviously, establishing a monopoly does not allow the market to
discover prices.

But also, if they really wanted the market to discover prices, they would
establish a market. Namely, they would allow potential registrars to bid on
the yearly registration price, and then give the lowest (qualified) bidder a
contract to run the domain for a few years, with that fixed registration
price.

As it is, this is like handing over the street network of a city to a private
owner "for better prices discovery". It's just crazy.

~~~
ralph84
> Namely, they would allow potential registrars to bid on the yearly
> registration price, and then give the lowest (qualified) bidder a contract
> to run the domain for a few years, with that fixed registration price.

This is sort of how it used to work. NSF created and funded InterNIC and
contracted its operation to Network Solutions. The cost of registering a
domain was $0.

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scarejunba
This is not even about the price caps. This is about the direct transfer of
value from the public to a single company. That's not acceptable. If they had
to buy .com or .org they would have to pay billions. We cannot just give this
away for free.

I lived in the third world and this was so common there. Some company would
infiltrate neutral arbiters or government offices and those places would then
pass off public goods to the company under some spurious excuse. That company
then immediately gets billions of dollars in value.

That's insane. It's straightforward corruption.

~~~
hbbio
.com itself is probably worth 100s of billions. A new Big Four...

There are more than 100M .com domains. An average price of $100/year would
leave sites with no other option than to pay.

So, that's a $10bn/year business with very very high margins. Worth 100s.

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zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC
I wonder what the chances of an alternate organization simply starting a new
.org registry would be if this actually happens? Would this be bad enough that
the world would be willing to simply ignore ICANN on the question of who is
responsible for .org?

Or rather, maybe not ignore it, but simply add a secondary recognized
authoritative zone that gets asked when ICANN's registrar returns an NXDOMAIN?
Then, the Red Cross, say, could simply use trademark law to prevent ICANN's
registrar from handing out the domain to anyone, and register it themselves
through the alternate registrar at a reasonable price?

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lsiebert
Comments close in one day, you can submit one at
[https://www.icann.org/public-comments/org-
renewal-2019-03-18...](https://www.icann.org/public-comments/org-
renewal-2019-03-18-en)

~~~
wolfgang42
Also:

[https://www.icann.org/public-comments/info-
renewal-2019-03-1...](https://www.icann.org/public-comments/info-
renewal-2019-03-18-en)

[https://www.icann.org/public-comments/biz-
renewal-2019-04-03...](https://www.icann.org/public-comments/biz-
renewal-2019-04-03-en)

~~~
rambojazz
.info and .biz are not as valuable as .org in my opinion. I don't really mind
price changes on those 2, but I certainly think .org has a higher purpose than
providing a TLD in exchange for money.

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devinplatt
ELI5 version: [https://www.namecheap.com/blog/keep-domain-prices-in-
check/](https://www.namecheap.com/blog/keep-domain-prices-in-check/)

I have a .org domain, but I don't know much about the Domain Name System at
all so I did Google search and found that article quite helpful. Maybe someone
else will too?

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numakerg
>If Verisign were to charge him $10 million per year to renew the tucows.com
domain name despite "the bile that would rise" in his stomach he would likely
pay that renewal fee because it is only through Verisign that he can obtain
the tucows.com domain name and because the domain name is that vital to his
business.

Would it be in the company's interest to sue ICANN at that point?

~~~
TheRealPomax
Sue them on what grounds?

~~~
bencollier49
I wonder if trademark law would kick in at that point.

~~~
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC
I suspect it would not. Not until they handed the domain to someone else, that
is. You might be able to force them to not give it to anyone else, maybe, but
I'd be susprised if you could force them to give it to you.

~~~
thaumasiotes
You can force other people who have domains you want to turn them over to you
in a trademark suit. Forcing a registrar to do it isn't quite the same thing
-- the registrar isn't parallel to you, it's one level up -- but it's not
quite different either.

------
scarejunba
No way. This is awful. They cannot be allowed to do this. What do we have to
do to stop this insanity? These companies don’t own the namespace. They are in
charge of delivering a service that resolves the namespace.

This is not at all correct. ICANN must not do this!

~~~
thaumasiotes
> These companies don’t own the namespace. They are in charge of delivering a
> service that resolves the namespace.

Matt Levine likes to write about different concepts of business ownership,
such as...

\- You own all the company's stock.

\- You are legally listed as the owner on a piece of paper somewhere.

\- You know all the company passwords.

\- Everyone at the company recognizes your authority.

\- You have the keys to the office.

All of those are more or less independent of each other and give you different
kinds of control.

In a very real sense, if you resolve the namespace, then you own the
namespace.

~~~
scarejunba
Sure, in the sense that GitHub owns my code. But if Microsoft take the stuff
in my private repo and sell it to someone else, I'm going to kick up a fuss.

------
Isinlor
Isn't this exactly the type of situation that USA antitrust law is supposed to
penalize? Controlling .org is a monopoly. Rising prices is exploiting that
monopoly and is detrimental to customers.

Seems like it should be easy to show in court. Am I missing something?

~~~
adventured
> Am I missing something?

Modern anti-trust law isn't about punishing monopolies per se. Its primary
focus is on consumer harm (direct or indirect). It is not against anti-trust
law to exploit a monopoly. Microsoft, Google, Intel, Cisco, eBay, Google,
Facebook, SiriusXM, and a thousand other companies (at various sizes at the
local, regional and national levels) in the US do exactly that every day.

An anti-trust case would need to prove a given action is particularly harmful.
The extent of the monopoly exploitation and harm is where the case is argued.
It's very much a subjective doctrine and always has been. Any company raising
prices will argue that they're doing so in a very reasonable manner, and then
will set out to demonstrate that it's reasonable (based on any favorable
comparisons they can make).

~~~
Aeolun
All .org organizations suddenly switching to a different domain name seems
like a fantastic definition of harm to me.

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hkt
[https://www.itu.int/](https://www.itu.int/)

These people should probably be in charge of icann / everything currently in
icann's domain.

~~~
rudiv
Y'know, I tried to search for opinions on ITU vs ICANN, but I couldn't find
much signal amongst the noise - mostly handwavey arguments about how only the
US can be trusted to uphold freedom and handing the control(s) of the Internet
over to godless foreigners will lead to totalitarianism, yadda yadda. Do you
know of any good writing on the subject?

------
rasengan
The public comment system is moderated, so any comments that do not get
approved by the moderator will not be published.

This is exactly how you get foul play. Far from a vote, this process stinks of
all kind of potential for corruption.

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bouncycastle
The internet community needs come come up with an alternative domain registry
system, one that completely removes middlemen. Did I hear someone echo
"blockchain"?

~~~
JonathonW
What decides who gets a name in a “blockchain” DNS? The first to squat on the
name? The one to waste the most electricity doing meaningless computations?
The highest bidder?

~~~
bouncycastle
Same existing methods that are used today could be used to prevent squatting,
eg 'commit-reveal' Vickery style auction, in that way the domains do not go
for the highest price (The highest bidder wins but the price paid is the
second-highest bid).

~~~
notahacker
So basically, there is a middleman, taking auction bids which are a lot higher
than .com renewal fees...

~~~
bouncycastle
Not when it's built in to the protocol itself.

------
im3w1l
Is this related to the 2016 story of how "Obama handed over control of the
internet" ?

