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.blog renewal prices will not go up, registry promises

Kevin Murphy, July 5, 2017, 09:23:19 (UTC), Domain Registries

Knock Knock Whois There, the .blog registry, has promised not to raise its wholesale fees on existing registrations.
The company, which is affiliated with WordPress, seems to have made the move in response to ongoing registrar discomfort following Uniregistry’s plan to significant raise the price of several of its new gTLDs (which has since been backpedaled).
The promise has been baked into the Registry-Registrar Agreement under which all of its registrars can sell .blog names.
The new RRA reads (with the new text in italics):

5.1.1. Registrar agrees to pay Registry Operator or its designee in accordance with the fee schedule set forth in Exhibit A for initial and renewal registrations and other services provided by Registry Operator to Registrar (collectively, “Fees”). Registry Operator reserves the right, from time to time, to modify the Fees in a manner consistent with ICANN policies and Registry Policies. However, once a domain is registered, Registry Operator will not modify the Renewal Fee of that domain.

This of course leaves the door open for KKWT to increase the price of a new registration, but it seems renewal prices are frozen.
I believe the current wholesale .blog fee starts at $16 per year.
The new RRA also adds ICANN-mandated language concerning the Uniform Rapid Suspension policy and a clarification about registrar legal indemnifications, KKWT said.

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Comments (6)

  1. Richard Funden says:

    Still sounds like an implementation nightmare, especially if they were to raise registration prices regularly.
    Registrars would have to track when a domain was registered to display the correct renewal prices next to the registration.
    How is a registrar expected to provide price lists for that?

    • Rubens Kuhl says:

      The market needs to move from a TLD product perspective to a domain product perspective. Selling domains like physical goods leads to suffering… the stock market is a better metaphor for intangible goods.

  2. Pam Little says:

    The new RAA should be the new RRA (sorry, Kevin).
    ICANN-mandated language concerning the Uniform Rapid Suspension policy – this is something many registries have missed in their RRAs. One only needs to look at the RRA requests/amendments to date. It would make more sense to have those requirements reflected in a policy, rather than requiring registries to include them in their RRAs.

    • Rubens Kuhl says:

      Pam, that might happen if URS passes by the RPMs PDP. But until then, contractual language is the only for it to be enforced.

    • Kevin Murphy says:

      Thanks Pam. Random typo. I have corrected RAA to RRA in the post.

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