Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
| Subscribe: Newsletters & News Alerts | ICANN Blog | Public Comment
| Subscribe: Newsletters & News Alerts | ICANN Blog | Public Comment
Proposed .NAME Renewal Registry Agreement Posted for Public Comment
29 June 2007
The proposed .NAME renewal registry agreement is posted for public comment and can be viewed at http://ww.icann.org/tlds/agreements/name/renewal-proposed-21jun07.pdf [PDF, 97K] and appendices at http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/name/appendices-renewal-proposed-final-07.pdf [PDF, 305K].
The proposed .NAME renewal agreement is fundamentally the same as what was negotiated and approved for .BIZ, also an unsponsored/restricted gTLD, in 2006. A marked version contrasting the approved .BIZ agreement to the proposed .NAME renewal agreement is attached for comparison and can be viewed at http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/name/agreement-draft-21jun07.pdf [PDF, 148K].
There are elements of the proposed renewal agreement that vary from the current .NAME agreement. The attached table, which may be viewed at http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/name/name-biz-comparison-25jun07.pdf [PDF, 132K], summarizes all the differences between the 2001 and proposed 2007 agreement. The substantive changes include:
.NAME currently pays an annual fixed fee that has been subject to a maximum 10% annual increase since its inception. The proposed renewal agreement contains the same registry-level transaction fee schedule as the recently approved gTLD agreements.
.NAME makes a distinction between traditional second and third-level registrations vs. bulk third-level registrations. Bulk is defined as sales of 50,000 names or more under .NAME’s consumer mass-market approach to third-level registrations. .NAME has said their mass-market approach to third-level registrations is needed for the consumer market to prosper and grow.
Bulk third-level registrations have a fee, as of the effective date of the agreement, roughly equivalent to 5% of revenue with: no minimum fee vs. second-level and traditional third-level registrations that have a fee minimum of $0.15US per registration: and a fee cap of $0.15US vs. other recently approved registry agreements that have a fee cap of $0.25US.
This fee structure is intended to facilitate the sale of third-level names via a special program, a form of innovation, intended to provide new consumer choices.