New .org contract could make registrars sign up to 2013 RAA
Registrars risk losing their right to sell .org domain names unless they sign up to the new 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement.
The change is among several proposed to Public Interest Registry’s .org Registry Agreement with ICANN, which was published for public comment over the weekend.
Amendments to the .org RA, which came to the end of its six-year term in April, are very similar to those put forward for the .info and .biz contracts last month.
But .org is a far larger and more popular TLD, putting more pressure on more registrars to sign up to the 2013 RAA, with its new Whois verification and privacy service obligations.
For registrars on the 2009 and 2001 RAAs, the clock would start ticking the day that registrars representing two thirds of all .org registrations sign the 2013 RAA.
That threshold could be met in .org if the top eight or nine registrars make the switch.
PIR would then get 60 days to tell its remaining registrars that they have 270 days to move to the new RAA. Any registrar that failed to adopt it in that time would lose its right to sell .org domain names.
As with the .info and .biz contracts, the provisions related to the 2013 RAA would only kick in if Verisign asks for the same changes for its .com and .net agreements, which may never happen.
Other changes proposed for the .org contract include:
- Cross-ownership restrictions. PIR will be able to own a registrar under the new deal, lifting the long-standing ban on gTLD registries selling domains in their own TLD.
- Price increases. PIR will be able to raise its .org registry fee by 10% per year, from its current level of $8.25.
- Code of Conduct. PIR will have to abide by the same registry Code of Conduct as new gTLD operators, which contains provisions mainly related to equal registrar access.
The propose .org contract is open for public comment until August 12.
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