Citing struggling registries, group requests temporary fee rollback and marketing effort.
The gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) has asked (pdf) ICANN to cut its fees for a year and to undertake a $3 million marketing effort to promote new top level domain names.
In a letter to ICANN last week, RySG chair Paul Diaz said that “A number of gTLD operators are struggling” and reducing the fees will give the registries more money to do marketing.
Currently, registries with fewer than 50,000 annual transactions pay a quarterly fee of $6,250. RySG would like this fee reduced to $1,562.50 per quarter for a year.
The letter points out that a registry with just 1,000 names is paying $25.00 per name per year in ICANN fees. Domains that existed before new TLDs generally pay lower fees.
Additionally, RySG wants ICANN to seed $3 million in a fund “to promote universal awareness of new
gTLDs to the general Internet user community, and universal acceptance of new gTLDs across the
Internet.”
RySG says the money should come from the $100 million surplus it expects ICANN to have from running the new TLD program. (This amount does not include the $200 million + in auction proceeds). Funding the discounts and marketing would cost about $20 million. ICANN has said its fee structure for the new TLD program was designed to be cost neutral.
While many new TLD operators are indeed struggling, some of the ones that have many strings are not. Donuts, which operates about 200 strings, has said it is very profitable. It would get over $900,000 in fee reductions if ICANN were to adopt RySG’s proposal.
M. Menius says
This request is reasonable, and ICANN should pursue heavy marketing in support of new gtld promotion.
Les says
No, it is not reasonable. The rules were clearly spelled out and acknowledged in advance. Not ICANN’s fault that registry owners are bad at math and projections. Personally, I think they have a better case against their 6th grade teachers than ICANN.
Snoopy says
If that request is taken seriously they’ll be asking for handouts every year because nothing will ever change for those doomed registries.
Icann should not waste any money promoting this either, that is the job of the registry.
Reality says
There’s no point throwing good money after bad. The new gTLDs are finished.
Bee says
Yes, agreed.
Brad Mugford says
Too bad. They knew what they were getting into.
If they are struggling they only have themselves to blame for overestimating demand and poor management, decision making, and shady practices.
ICANN was not designed as a marketing firm. If there is limited demand for their product, it might just be because the product sucks.
Brad
Rand says
“The product sucks?” Huh? What? Seriously, how can you honestly say that? Nah, just kidding. Yes, they did suck horribly and will all die as a result.
Jim May says
Let them all go broke!
Danny says
ICANN is sitting on a huuuuuuuge pile of cash made from the program. Couldn’t hurt to spend some of it in support of the program.
Spires says
ICANN still can’t believe that such a group of dumphucks actually existed and have been laughing all the way to the bank. Why in the world would they ever want to reduce the fees for these morons?
M. Menius says
True, Danny. A huge amount of money. ICANN presumably would want to see broad adoption and eventual success of the new tld program. No reason ICANN can’t help inform the public alongside registries’ and registrars’ efforts. ICANN’s decision to release so many, so fast calls for more than average efforts to educate the public, imo.
Dot Advice says
Just scrap this fixed quarterly fee and making everything t/a based with a threshold of 150M – otherwise more and more TLDs will .FAIL financially .then What happens when a TLD = JUNK. status ??
Ted says
IMO, this request is ridiculous. The New G’s were undeniably a bust, but the numerous signs of failure all existed before any one of these “wronged” registries plunked down their $185,000 application fee.
Snoopy says
Dot advice, it gets “sunsetted” as though it never existed, and that is where a lot of these tld need to go. .onl anyone?
Jane Doe says
If a registry fails. The extension goes to a backup registry till they can pass it onto another operator.
Snoopy says
Or until it gets “sunsetted”.
Dot Advice says
Hi Snoopy , Jane Doe . I disagree . I am on the WG at ICANN re Round 2 . If the registry backend fails ( ie misses SLA targets) then a EBERO kicks in . ICANN has nt done this yet – although SLA s targets have been breached ! ICANN confirmed .what if the BUSINESS fails – what then ??? Snoopy , please explain what you mean by sunsetted – where is that in Registry Agreement or the Applicant Guidebook ,
.
BetTheLot says
You can not request special help with marketing and not at the same time market the legacy TLDs. Otherwise ICANN does not remain independent and neutral.
They knew the rules, what utter rubbish expecting some one else to do their marketing.
It is not ICANN’s job to sustain a nonviable business model
Dan says
If they want concessions rework the contracts, so they can’t raise prices 3000
Percent
Martin says
RIP
Eloquent 1 says
The end. Agreed. As for getting a discount, I ask the following. Had the program been a smashing success, would they have been willing to pay ICANN extra? No? Then they should not get a reprieve. Clearly, they did not do sufficient market research and made their ill-conceived bed, they now need to lie in it. Yeah, it bites, but so did the new gtlds.
Fun Gus says
What kind of businessmen are these? Did they really go into this arrangement thinking there was money to be made by selling bloody stupid extensions that nobody wanted?
Montrel says
Why? I would like a 75% discount on my car loan too, but guess what – aint gonna happen. Marketing assistance? Ha! Why would ICANN pour perfectly good money after bad? These gtld registries just need to admit defeat.
Moe Sr. says
Boo-hoo. Sob, sob. Woe is me!
I am NOT in favor of bailing out guys who were too stupid to predict that the gtlds will fail. Seemed rather obvious to everyone else. They now need to deal with the ramifications of their bad business decision.
Snoopy says
There is no point marketing a product nobody wants.
christopher brennan says
what are the chances godaddy will give me a break on my renewal fee’s so i can buy some premium scotch
Snoopy says
“Donuts, which operates about 200 strings, has said it is very profitable.”
If you read one of Rightside’s profit announcement you’d swear they were profitable as well.
Instead of that they lost $33 million last year. I would not believe that Donuts is genuinely profitable short of seeing a set of audited accounts. I would bet that the real numbers are not pretty just like their competitors numbers.
Ron says
I don’t know how people who have money can just burn it by creating extensions like .ceo, .wed .blackfriday etc… like come on people
Paul says
“A new gTLD registry operator with 1,000 names must pay ICANN $25 per domain name each year, a 5,000 name registry must pay ICANN $5
per domain name each year, and a 10,000 name registry must pay ICANN $2.50 per domain per year, all while trying to compete against legacy gTLDs whose operators pay just $0.25 per domain name.”
OMG! Seems they just figured this out! Indication to me that this group of registry operators may not necessarily be the sharpest knives in the drawer.
Sean says
What part of your foreshadowing 2008 article did they not understand, Andrew? Stupid is as stupid does. https://domainnamewire.com/2008/12/17/microsoft-time-warner-others-weigh-in-on-new-tlds/
Snoopy says
Agree, this is why there should be no bailout. These registries pushed for new tld’s even though many stated there was no genuine demand. Now that the have experienced the complete lack of any uptake they hope a $3million ICANN promotion will save the day. Ntld registries must take responsibility for their own bad decisions.
Franks Chilling says
It’s pretty funny that the guys who lost the auctions actually made more money than the guys who won the auctions for these strings but there is a way out ….
Just follow the pied piper….the unibummer…..raise the cost of new registrations to $185,000 per year and all you need to do is sell one domain to get your money back…..then have the account settings default to auto renew……
Cha Ching
Ron says
I agree get a second mortgage so you can register IKnowWhatYouDidLast.BlackFriday
Reality says
Take a look at Uniregistry’s extensions on ntldstats.com. Some of Frank’s older extensions are about to experience drops of 30% to 60% of the total inventory. In particular, take a look at .click, .lol and .sexy. This experiment is well and truly over.
Ada says
ICANN is not stupid. Remember they made so many millions from this funny nTLDs.
They know very well that reducing fees do not help ntlds, only make them less rich.
This article’s title should be – “loosers begging for help”
Marius says
Ha, this is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a while! It proves there are so many clowns out there with pockets much larger than brains.
Nick says
ICANN needs to raise fees to punished any operator that lied and said it would be a low cost alternative, then held back all the good domains and slapped them with a five figure price tag.
Charity says
What!?! They want ICANN to fund a $3,000,000 marketing campaign for them.
If all the new gTLD registries clubbed together, they only need to put in about $1,500 for each of the 2000 new gTLD strings themselves for such a marketing campaign without begging for handouts.
Only $1,500 per new gTLD string is small pocket-money.
The more successful new gTLD registries (and some of them must be raking in the cash) could even chip in on behalf of their less successful fellow new gTLD compatriots. It is utterly wrong to expect ICANN to fund this.
New gTLDs should have considered this option before holding out the begging bowl.
These registries will have gone into this project with their eyes open and with suitable budgets and business plans to cover all eventualities. That is what business is all about.
Steve says
A voice of reason from Esther Dyson, which she made in 2013. Esther is one of the most astute investors in tech and her family, of course, if well-known for its contributions to science and technology.
Esther pretty much hit a bulls-eye with this assessment of the GTLDs:
” Esther Dyson, a technology investor who served as the founding chairwoman of ICANN.
Dyson likens ICANN’s plan for the introduction of new gTLDs to creating derivative-like businesses on Wall Street that have no value.
“You can charge people for it, but you are contributing nothing to the happiness of humanity.”
Samit says
Any renegotiations should mandatorily include price caps?
ICANN should spend money on promotion, but $3m isn’t going to do much and registries themselves should be promoting but they’re waiting for ICANN to do so.
This is what this request would sound like if it wasn’t domains – “The govt collects so much tax from us, they should reduce the tax and spend the tax they do get on promoting our business.”
Snoopy says
I don’t think those registries are waiting for Icann, I think they just aren’t willing to spend much themselves, because advertising an extension to anyone beyond domainers is a waste of money.
Unsympathetic says
Some registries are struggling. Tough! Get over it.
Some registries are very successful making shedloads of cash.
Why support the failing ones that can’t hack it. They had equal opportunities. Don’t bleat and expect ICANN to bail you out.
Gaz says
Clearly some gTLD’ s were poorly selected. Others are good and will continue to roll out and gain more popularity, but progress is slow. Google, Amazon, BBqC are all yet to show their hands.
Most people posting here are .com domainers and have had their fingers crossed for them to fail since they were announced. They directly affect the vale of their “stock” and they’re happy that some registries got their forecasting wrong.
However, clearly, so did “not for profit” ICANN (we should hope anyway). It can’t be the case that the new gTLD s give them $300m+ profit in the first few years and $10m’s every year after.
That money needs to go somewhere and realigning the fees makes perfect sense. Charitable donations would also be a good suggestion.
Ron says
The people who bought those extensions signed off on those documents, so did their legal teams.
When times are good they will not be handing money back, so don’t expect a handout for something you asked for.
Domo Sapiens says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkLXOWimMY8
Morrison says
The gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group is trying it on. Most registries are rolling in money and don´t need any support. Any financial support would simply augment their profits.
“Donuts, which operates about 200 strings, has said it is very profitable. It would get over $900,000 in fee reductions if ICANN were to adopt RySG’s proposal.”
A more recent DNW article talks about the success of Donut´s .vip new gTLD with over 586,000 registrations. Having conquered China is now expanding into Japan. eName currently running an auction has generated approximately USD $160,000 in .vip sales within the first five days.
No. The gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) cites the struggling registries. It is crazy that ICANN should throw money at supporting registries with unsustainable miniscule volumes of registrations.
For example, .wed has a meagre 93 registrations https://ntldstats.com/tld/wed
http://domainincite.com/16144-weirdest-new-gtld-launch-yet-wed-launches-with-a-single-registrar
Throwing money at ailing registries is not going to help ill thought out business plans.
Every day restaurants open, some succeed, others fail and close. That´s life.
Snoopy says
This is all mixed up and wrong, Donuts have nothing to do with .vip and most registries are likely losing money, you can see that just from looking at the ones who are public companies.
Donuts profitability is not known as they have not released any accounts. It should be noted that registries have a pretty big incentive to claim they are financially successful. Who would buy a string from a registry that wasn’t?
Morrison says
It’s this DNW article that says “Donuts, which operates about 200 strings, has said it is very profitable.”
Sorry about the error in the third paragraph. It is of course MMX (not Donuts) that is the success story with .VIP, the following article on DNW. MMX appears to be going from strength to strength.
MMX targets one million .VIP registrations. https://domainnamewire.com/2017/03/21/mmx-targets-one-million-vip-registrations/
But in response to your comment, what would be helpful would be if all the new gtld registries could provide links to their published online company accounts.
Marc says
If ICANN spends $3,000,000 on new TLD advertising then it would only be fair for them to do the same day for legacy extensions like .com, .net and the others since the whole world has already invested in those.
Marc says
I meant ‘same thing’.
Bobolob says
Running a registry is RySGy business. Clearly they didn’t know the RySGs of what they were getting into.
Albert says
Not sure how to say this tactfully, but here goes. The new gtlds have always sucked. Now don’t act all surprised. You already knew that. Your wife knew that. So did the mailman. Everyone knew that. Oh, except for the registries that are now acting as innocent victims. Yeah, ICANN made a killing from these fools, but too bad. I vote no on the discounts and promotional assistance. It’s just not right.
kadin trend says
Ha, this is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a while! It proves there are so many clowns out there with pockets much larger than brains.
Morrison says
The gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) in its memo to ICANN talks about this “double whammy” effect of the fee structure. A fee structure of which the registries were well aware of when they entered into agreements.
They are having a joke. Let’s talk about “double whammy”.
Let’s talk about: The Uniregistry disaster continues: registrar increases domain retail prices by 62% to 75%
https://onlinedomain.com/2017/03/20/domain-name-news/uniregistry-disaster-continues-registrar-increases-domain-retail-prices-62-75/
After Uniregistry the registry raises prices on some of its new gtlds by up to 3000%, double whammy Uniregistry the registrar then raises retail prices further.
“Here is an example, the .Hosting current retail price is $29,88. The wholesale price goes up by $280. So the expected new retail price would be $309,88. But this is not the case. not even close. The new retail price is now $498,88. So the registrar added another $189 on top of the wholesale price increase. So .Hosting domains will now be sold for $469 more than what they were selling before!!!”
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. The gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) should keep their own house in order before they start pleading the poverty of their struggling members.
The gTLD Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) says that such reductions in fees would “give registries more ability to provide lower prices”.
A $2.50 or $5 or $25 reduction ain’t going to make one jot of difference off the $498,88 retail price of a .hosting domain name.
For the already more profitable registries $2.50 or $5 or $25 is just going to disappear into their pockets. Kerchingggggggg, thanks very much that’ll pay for the next office party. What needs to be remembered is that there are no caps on either pricing or renewals of ngtlds so whatever registries do today, like Uniregistry, they can simply up their prices by 3000% or more and even more tomorrow.
Every day restaurants open, some succeed, others fail and close. That´s life.
Simon Smith says
Simon Smith, Cyber Security Expert and Forensic Investigator here. I completely agree. Not only is it a cash cow for a non-tangible improperly regulated asset, it is something that you cannot rely on not being hijacked from domain squatters, and ICANN permit this practice with ‘monetisation’ in various countries. I work for a company called eVestigator. I also deal with internet fraud and defamation. ICANN claims to have Bylaws that claim to be creating a culture of regulation, yet they are at boardroom level, absolutely hopeless at even trying to achieve such outcomes. They should be sacked, and the internet should be licensed out to each government of the day and charged at cost per use. There should be no ‘aftermarket’ scamming and there should be no profiteering.