One of the largest domain registrars Namecheap has filed a Reconsideration Request (pdf) to ICANN to have a second review at its recent decision to remove price caps on certain TLDs. ICANN in a decision taken in June end, removed price caps from .org & .info.
Namecheap claims to have been affected from this decision and has said that they also represent the interests of the domain registrants who will be severely affected by this decision. The complaint explains concerns that many domainers and internet users have already raised: removing price caps from legacy TLDs adds extreme uncertainty to domain registrants, switching costs for domains are high, and ICANN seemingly ignored public input. The company wrote:
The company wrote:
Namecheap is submitting this reconsideration request to protect the rights and interests of Namecheap’s customers and the entire internet community. Price caps for legacy TLDs have been an integral longstanding foundation for the domain name marketplace, and removing them will result in uncertainty and confusion at a minimum, and in the worst case, increased costs for domain registrants worldwide.
It might be interesting to see how ICANN will act on this reconsideration request given the controversy around it. ICANN will be in Monteal this November and are quite expected to hear and discuss this request there.