Help Us Avoid Domain Price Increases - .org, .info, and .biz

Just got this email from Namecheap, this would not be good news if it went ahead. You can have your say in the links...

We have important information to share with you that can affect the price of your domains.

What’s Happening

ICANN, the organization that oversees domain names, has proposedremoving price caps on all .org, .info, and .biz top level domains. This change could significantly increase the wholesale price that Namecheap pays for domains, and would force us to pass along those increases to you.

Who Sets the Prices

Wholesale registries charge Namecheap a set fee per domain name per year. Namecheap then adds a little markup to cover things like support, provisioning domain services, transaction fees, etc. ICANN includes a provision in its contracts with registries that limits what they can charge.

Why ICANN is Doing This

ICANN’s current contract with Public Interest Registry (PIR), the group that runs the .org domain name, allows PIR to increase the wholesale price of .org domains by 10% a year. Now ICANN is proposing extending the contract to operate .org but letting PIR set whatever prices it wants.
Rather than a 10% increase to renew your domain next year, PIR could suddenly start charging registrars like Namecheap 100 times as much. In turn, registrars would have no choice but to pass these charges on to customers. Similar contract proposals may also impact .info and .biz prices.

Speak Up Against the Change

The good news is that domain owners like yourself can take action to stop these price increases. Act now by sending your comments to ICANN before April 29, 2019.

You can leave your comment on each proposal here:

.Org comment period
.Info comment period
.Biz comment period

Only 4 days left to register your comment/complaint about this idea.

Have your say.

This sucks, let's hope it doesn't go thru!

John4life2017 said:

This sucks, let's hope it doesn't go thru!

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I just bought a bunch of expired .org's a few weeks ago, they are already ridiculously expensive.

Jeez, what about all the non-profit organizations involved? The small ones that are about to get stomped on by giants. It would be different if a place could easily switch names, but this is going to shut some doors if the price goes runaway train style. I'll be adding comments on each.

Here we go, big companies trying to increase their profits by slaughtering small sites. Great.

these CAN bastards, then why not all .com domains price as much same as .info before, like 1.99 per year, go to hell.

terrycody said:

these CAN bastards, then why not all .com domains price as much same as .info before, like 1.99 per year, go to hell.

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They say it's for 'legacy' domains only, which is mildly fair, but there must be better solutions. And there's not a whole ton of people winning in this scenario, either. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's just the wholesalers that win. I think the real reason this pisses me off is that the domains that currently have these domains and all the ones that came before them are what made the TLDs what they are and now they have to pay the premium for all their hard work. And how the hell am I just now hearing this? I must be out of the loop. Then again, there's this:

4/22 - So far only nine people have commented on the .org proposal and one on .info. While larger companies will probably wait until the last minute to comment, this number is surprisingly low given the impact this could have on the industry. I suspect some domain name registrars will end up commenting. (https://domainnamewire.com/2019/04/22/time-is-running-out-to-reject-unlimited-org-and-other-prices/)

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houdinii321 said:

They say it's for 'legacy' domains only, which is mildly fair, but there must be better solutions. And there's not a whole ton of people winning in this scenario, either. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's just the wholesalers that win. I think the real reason this pisses me off is that the domains that currently have these domains and all the ones that came before them are what made the TLDs what they are and now they have to pay the premium for all their hard work. And how the hell am I just now hearing this? I must be out of the loop. Then again, there's this:

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It is definitely just ICANN and the wholesalers who win with this, just a big fat pay day for them

I am the same as you when I found out yesterday. Why is there not more coverage of this all over the tech sites, forums etc. I think that everyone who owned a .org, .info or .biz domain should have at least been warned from the outset by ICANN via email. Shocking that this did not happen!

3 days to go - we need to get a LOT more comments/votes against the change.

If anyone has not commented, please follow the links and do so.

So far only nine people have commented on the .org proposal and one on .info.


This can be expected though lol, we are doomed.

I commented on all three.

.org and .info comment close date = 23:59 UTC tonight.

Less than 1 day to make a difference and save money next renewal.