In an open letter to Vint Cerf, chairman of ICANN, eight top
registrars, including Network Solutions, GoDaddy, Register.com and
Melbourne IT, urged the organisation to make critical changes to
the agreements, which have already been revised as a result of
public comment.
"Unfortunately, the changes do not go to the heart of the
matter," says the letter to ICANN's Board. "The agreement still
harms the internet community by allowing unjustified price
increases in most future years at a time when fees for .com should
be decreasing, not rising."
The revised settlement and registry agreements, published by
ICANN in January, allow VeriSign to increase the price of domain
name registrations by up to 7% in four of the next six years.
VeriSign has also been given a presumptive right to renewal of
the .com registry, on the proviso that it complies with
clarifications on the use that it may make of traffic data, new
service-level specifications for the .com registry, and revised
powers of approval granted to ICANN in respect of possible new
registry services.
According to the open letter, if these provisions are allowed to
stand, then competition in the .com registry will be affected.
VeriSign should be forced to justify any price increases, or
have them reviewed, while the renewal of the .com registry should
be by means of a competitive rebid of the contract, say the
registrars.
They are particularly concerned that VeriSign which, as the .com
domain registry controls 85% of the US market, will be locked in as
registry operator “without the counterbalance of a competitive bid
process”.
“The guarantee of an unregulated monopoly runs counter to the
reasons behind why ICANN was created the policies of the anti-trust
laws of the United States, and the competition policies of many
nations worldwide,” says the letter.
The new arrangements, which are open for public comment until
20th February, have yet to be approved by the ICANN Board.
