Ignoring Opposition, ICANN Eliminates Price Caps on .org Domain Names ⇥ reviewsignal.com

Kevin Ohashi, Review Signal:

ICANN, which regulates the domain name system, is reviewing the renewal of the .ORG registry contract with Public Interest Registry (PIR). It’s also running an identical process for .BIZ/INFO/ASIA, but they are of less concern to most people and don’t have the long history of existing pre-ICANN that .org does. The proposal was already discussed between PIR and ICANN staff before being put out for comment from stakeholders. This alone is worrisome that the contract is negotiated behind closed doors and without input beforehand.

[…]

Not only is there virtually no support for this policy, the only people making any argument in favor of removing price caps have captured an ICANN constituency to do it, one that is supposed to represent business interests broadly (not registry interests).

ICANN voted to eliminate the $8.25 per year price cap on .org domains — that is, domains that are for not-for-profit organizations, charities, and other organizations that count on precise budgeting. It’s no wonder there was so much opposition to this; it’s completely mysterious why ICANN would choose to ignore overwhelming support for .org price caps for a slightly different contract.