closed Proposed Renewal of the Registry Agreement for .COM

Outcome

The proposed renewal of the .COM registry agreement (.COM Renewal RA) and the proposed second amendment to the Letter of Intent (LOI) were posted for public comment from 26 September 2024 to 05 November 2024 and received 27 comments during the open public comment proceeding. One additional comment was submitted by the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) on 08 November and was accepted by ICANN, for a total of 28 comments.

Commenters focused on the following issues, which are addressed in detail in the Summary of Submissions below:

1. The ability for the registry operator to increase the maximum wholesale price of .COM domain names.
2. The desire for ICANN to seek community input prior to negotiating the renewal terms of the agreement.
3. A request for ICANN to open the management of the .COM gTLD to a public bidding process to foster more competitive pricing.
4. The suggestion that ICANN org conduct an economic study prior to the renewal of the .COM RA
5. The suggestion that ICANN should include Section 2.15 "Cooperation with Economic Studies” from the Base RA in the .COM RA.
6. The alignment of certain obligations for the .COM gTLD with those in the Base gTLD Registry Agreement.
7. The assertion that Verisign should do more to curb child sex abuse material (CSAM) in .COM.
8. Comments regarding the public comment process.
9. Concerns related to the secondary market for domain names.

ICANN appreciates the time, dedication, and participation in this proceeding and is grateful to those who provided their timely feedback.

What We Received Input On

ICANN org is posting for Public Comment the proposed renewal of the .COM Registry Agreement (.COM RA). The current .COM RA between ICANN and Verisign, Inc. (Verisign), the registry operator for the .COM top-level domain (TLD), was established in 2012 and is set to expire on 30 November 2024.

The renewal proposal is the result of bilateral discussions between ICANN and Verisign. The proposed renewal agreement for the .COM RA is based on the current .COM RA, as amended by Amendment 1 (2016), Amendment 2 (2019), and Amendment 3 (2020) and incorporates important concepts from the Base RA, including both recent amendments to the Base gTLD Registry Agreement (Base RA), bringing these enhanced obligations to the largest TLD.

Below is a summary of the key changes in the proposed .COM RA Renewal:

• Certain contractual obligations from the 2023 Global Amendment to the Base gTLD Registry Agreement to include requirements to deliver the Registration Data Directory Services (RDDS) over the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP). These include:
  • A requirement to comply with the gTLD RDAP Profile,
  • Updated definitions for RDDS-related terms,
  • Updated reporting requirements that include changes to address the advice from the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee in SAC097 related to inconsistent reporting of RDDS queries,
  • Service Level Requirements for RDAP availability, round-trip time, and update time,
  • Updates to Uniform Resource Locator (URL) web addresses in the RA and miscellaneous changes (e.g., URLs updated to “https” from “http”) to address outdated links, and
  • Adjustments to the allowable uses by ICANN of Bulk Registration Data Access (BRDA) to include for research purposes.
  • Note that unlike the Base RA, Verisign committed to continue to operate the WHOIS service in parallel with the RDAP for RDDS for .COM and requested to not have the option to sunset the obligations related to the WHOIS protocol.
• The obligations from the 2024 Global Amendment to the Base gTLD Registry Agreement related to mitigating DNS Abuse. These include:
  • A definition of DNS Abuse, that includes domain names used to perpetrate phishing, malware, botnets, pharming, and spam(when spam is used to deliver other forms of DNS Abuse).
  • A requirement to take the appropriate mitigation actions to stop, or otherwise disrupt, a registered domain name in .COM from being used for DNS Abuse, and
  • A target outcome for stopping or otherwise disrupting the use of .COM domain names for DNS Abuse.
• Certain contractual obligations to further align the .COM RA with the Base RA including:
  • The addition of a registry-level fixed fee of US$6,250 per calendar quarter,
  • An updated Variable Registry-Level Fee provision,
  • The addition of an “adjustment to fees” provision based on a percentage change in the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI), and
  • An update to reflect the change from uppercase “S” to a lowercase “s” for “security” and “stability” related to the applicability of ICANN Consensus Policies.
• Certain commitments to further enhance security, stability and resilience:
  • An obligation for ICANN and Verisign to work together on a business continuity plan to preserve and enhance the security, stability, and resiliency of the TLD should the need arise.
  • An obligation for Verisign to disclose security incidents that may significantly jeopardize the Registry’s systems to ICANN. This new obligation is the result of work ICANN and Verisign undertook together as part of Amendment 1 to the binding Letter of Intent (LOI) between ICANN and Verisign. The obligations are based on recommendations by the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee in its 3 November 2015 Advisory (SAC074) which were approved by the ICANN Board in February 2018.
• Updated three-party Data Escrow Agreement template between Verisign, the data escrow provider, and ICANN.

ICANN and Verisign also agreed to further amend the binding Letter of Intent (LOI) dated 27 March 2020, as amended in 2023, to include:

1. A commitment by Verisign to work with ICANN to determine the appropriate process for ICANN to publish statistics concerning security incident disclosures to ICANN based on the recommendations in SAC074.
2. For Verisign to support the development of a multilingual Internet that includes working with ICANN to improve the accessibility of the DNS in local languages and/or scripts through the development of LGR tables, code for processing, standards development, and “best practices” development. 

Background

Registry Agreements establish the rights, duties, liabilities, and obligations ICANN requires of registry operators to run gTLDs. Since ICANN’s inception, ICANN and Verisign have had various iterations of the .COM Registry Agreement that governs the obligations for operating the .COM TLD.

In addition to the RA between ICANN and Verisign, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration of the United States (NTIA), an agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), and Verisign maintain the “Cooperative Agreement" related to Verisign's operation of the .COM TLD. For clarity, ICANN is not a party to the Cooperative Agreement, nor does it participate in the discussions or negotiations that occur between the NTIA and Verisign related to the Cooperative Agreement. 

In December 2012, ICANN and Verisign entered into the current .COM RA with an initial term of six years. In October 2016, ICANN and Verisign agreed to Amendment No. 1 of the .COM Registry Agreement (Amendment 1), which extended the then-current term of the Registry Agreement to 30 November 2024. This extension complemented the work done with Verisign in support of the IANA stewardship transition.

On 26 October 2018, the NTIA and Verisign reached an agreement to amend the Cooperative Agreement (Amendment 35). Noting a more dynamic DNS marketplace based on ccTLDs, new gTLDs, and social media as well as a desire to remove certain regulations while still maintaining sufficient oversight, the DOC removed the prior price freeze restriction by giving Verisign the ability to increase prices by 7% per year for four out of every six years starting in 2020 for both new registrations and renewals. In March 2020, ICANN and Verisign agreed to Amendment 3 to the .COM RA and a new binding Letter of Intent (LOI) between the parties was executed.

ICANN has reviewed the renewal criteria set forth in Section 4.2 of the .COM RA and has confirmed that Verisign meets all the criteria for renewal.

Supporting Information