All your Base Agreement are belong to us: ICANN
ICANN responds to (some) questions regarding why it decided to remove price controls.
Earlier this month, Internet Commerce Association asked ICANN to explain its decision to remove price controls on .org domains.
Cyrus Namazi, Senior Vice-President Global Domains Division, has responded (pdf). What he stated is what many people feared when the ICANN community worked on a base agreement for fresh top level domain names: it is being used as the foundation for all top level domains, not just the fresh ones.
I recall people specifically warning against this during fresh top level domain discussions. They pointed out that fresh TLDs are being introduced in a different market and by different rules than legacy top level domains and that it was notable to draw a distinction between the two.
From the letter:
The Base RA was developed to support the fresh generic top-level domains (gTLDs) being created through the 2012 Fresh gTLD Program. It was developed through the bottom-up multistakeholder process counting multiple rounds of public comment and aligns with the underlying Generic Names Supporting Organization’s (GNSO’s) policy recommendations for fresh gTLDs. Established in 2013, the Base RA now applies to over 1,200 gTLDs. The ICANN org has consistently used the Base RA as the starting point for discussions with legacy gTLD operators regarding renewing their Registry Agreements. The Base RA provides additional safeguards and security and stability requirements compared to legacy agreements. Since 2014, a number of legacy gTLDs have renewed their agreements adopting the Base RA: cat, .jobs, .mobi, .pro, .tel, .travel, and most recently, .asia, .biz, .info, and .org.
Had the community discussions when formulating the fresh TLD base agreement earlier this decade been regarding creating a fresh agreement that applied to all top level domains, I can assure you the results would have been very different.
Namazi’s response also includes ICANN’s common refrain regarding price increases: that registrants can renew for ten years at today’s prices if an increase is disclosed.
Great, but who is around ten years from now to handle the complaints from registrants?
Or, who handles the complaints from registrants who didn’t know regarding the price increase? Sure, the registry gave notice to the registrars, but did the registrant ever find out?
Cyrus’ response is in paragraph form and does not explicitly answer all of Internet Commerce Association’s numbered questions.
ICANN will have to provide more answers in response to a Request for Reconsideration filed by domain registrar Namecheap.
