ICANN expects “significant” budget impact from coronavirus

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic is expected to have a “significant” impact on ICANN’s budget, according to an update from the organization.

The organization published its expectations of a $140.4 million budget for the fiscal year that begins this July last December, and opened it up for public comments.

In its summary of those comments (pdf), which had a February 25 deadline and therefore were not focused on the pandemic’s potential impact, ICANN said:

the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting significantly the entire world. ICANN expects that its activities and financial position will be significantly impacted as well. The ICANN org is working with the Board to assess and monitor the potential impact to ICANN’s funding, and planned work such as face-to-face meetings, travel, etc.

Any pandemic-related changes to the budget will be published prior to board approval, ICANN said.

So where is ICANN expecting the impact? It’s not entirely clear. I would expect to see some minor gains from slashing its travel budget in the wake of social distance rules, but it’s less obvious where a “significant” shortfall could occur.

ICANN had operational revenue — the money it gets from billing registries and registrars — of $136.8 million in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019, its most recently reported year (pdf).

Of that total, roughly $56 million came from the market leaders in both segments, Verisign and GoDaddy, both of which have been given glowing analyst coverage since the outbreak began.

One commentator recently wrote that Verisign is “immune” from coronavirus and GoDaddy’s CFO told analysts just last week that he expects the impact of coronavirus to be “minimal” in the first quarter. That could of course change in future.

Almost half of ICANN’s revenue, some $65.7 million, comes from the top 10 registries and registrars.

So is ICANN expecting to see weakness in the long tail, the few thousand accredited registrars and gTLD registries that account for under $1 million in ICANN contributions per year? Is it expecting reduced voluntary contributions from the ccTLDs and Regional Internet Registries?

Will coronavirus cause huge numbers of small businesses to abandon their domains as they go out of business? Will it inspire large numbers of the recently unemployed and quarantined to start up web-based businesses in an attempt to put food on the table? Will it cause large portfolio owners to downsize to save costs?

All of these outcomes seem possible, but these are unprecedented times, and I couldn’t being to guess how it will play out.

ICANN predicts shrinkage in new gTLD sector

ICANN will make less money from new gTLDs in its fiscal 2021 because fewer domains will be registered and renewed, according to its recently published draft budget.
The budget, released the day ICANN broke up for its Christmas holidays, shows that the organization expects to bring in $140.4 million in FY21, up a modest $300,000 on its FY20.
But it’s expecting the amount of money contributed by registries and registrars in the new gTLD sector to decline.
For FY21, it expects new gTLD registry transaction fees — the $0.25 paid to ICANN whenever a domain is registered, renewed or transferred — to be $5.1 million. That’s down from the $5.5 million currently forecast for FY20.
It expects registrar transaction fees for new gTLD domains to dip from $4.6 million to $4.3 million.
But at the same time, ICANN is predicting growth from its legacy gTLD segments, which of course are primarily driven by .com sales. All the other legacy gTLDs of note, even .org and .net, are currently on downward trajectories in terms of volumes.
For FY21, ICANN is forecasting legacy gTLD registry transaction fees to come in at $52.6 million, versus the $50.5 million it expects to see in the current FY20. In percentage terms, it’s about double the growth it’s predicting for the current FY.
Legacy gTLD registrar transaction fees are estimated to grow, however, from $31.2 million to $32.7 million.
In terms of fixed fees — the $25,000 every new gTLD registry has to pay every year regardless of transaction volume — ICANN is also predicting shrinkage.
It reckons it will lose a net seven registries in FY21, dropping from 1,170 to 1,163 by the end of June 2021. These are most likely dot-brand gTLDs that could follow the path of 69 predecessors and flunk out of the program.
ICANN also expects its base of paying registrars to go down by 100 accreditations, with no new registrar applications, causing fees to drop from $10.7 million this year to $9.6 million in FY21.
In short, it’s not a particularly rosy outlook for the gTLD industry, unless you’re Verisign.
ICANN’s financial year runs from July 1 to June 30 this year, and usually the December release of its draft budget includes some mid-year reevaluations of how it sees the current period playing out. But that’s not the case this time.
ICANN appears to be on-budget, suggesting that it’s getting better at modeling the industry the more years of historical transaction data it has access to.
The budget (pdf) is now open for public comment. I spotted a few errors, maybe you can too.

Time for some more ICANN salary porn

ICANN has filed its tax return for its fiscal 2018, so it’s once again that time of the year in which the community gets to salivate over how much its top staffers get paid.
The latest form 990, covering the 12 months to June 30, 2018, shows that the top 21 ICANN employees were compensated to the tune of $10.3 million, an average of $492,718 each.
That’s up about 4% from $9.9 million in the previous year, an average across the top 21 staffers of $474,396 apiece.
These numbers include base salary, bonuses, and benefits such as pension contributions.
Employee compensation overall increased from $60 million to $73.1 million.
The biggest earner was of course CEO Göran Marby, who is now earning more than his immediate predecessor Fadi Chehadé but a bit less than last-but-one boss Rod Beckstrom.
Marby’s total compensation was $936,585, having received a bonus of almost $200,000 during the year. His base salary was $673,133.
The number of staffers receiving six-figure salaries increased from 159 in fiscal 2017 to 183 — about 44% of its estimated end-of-year headcount.
Towards the end of the reported year, as ICANN faced a budget crunch, many members of the ICANN community had called on the organization to rein in its spending on staff.
ICANN says it targets compensation in the 50th to 75th percentile range for the relevant industry.
The top five outside contractors in the year were:

• Jones Day, ICANN’s go-to law firm. It received $5.4 million, down from $8.7 million in 2017.
• Zensar Technologies, the IT consultancy that develops and supports ICANN software. It received $3.7 million.
• IIS, the Swedish ccTLD registry, which does pre-delegation testing for new gTLDs. It received $1.3 million.
• Iron Mountain, the data escrow provider. It received $1.1 million.
• Infovity, which provides Oracle software support. It received $1 million.

The return shows that ICANN made a loss of $23.9 million in the year, on revenue that was down from $302.6 million to $136.7 million.
The primary reason for this massive decrease in revenue was the $135 million Verisign paid for the rights to run .web, at an ICANN last-resort auction, in ICANN’s fiscal 2017.
The tax form for 2018 can be found here (pdf) and 2017’s can be found here (pdf).

ICANN budget predicts small new gTLD recovery and slowing legacy growth

The new gTLD market will improve very slightly over the next year or so, according to ICANN’s latest budget predictions.

The organization is now forecasting that it will see $5.2 million of funding from new gTLD registry transaction fees in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019, up from the $5.1 million it predicted when it past the FY19 budget in May.

That’s based on expected transactions being 24 million, compared to the previous estimate of 23.9 million.

It’s the first time ICANN has revised its new gTLD transaction revenue estimates upwards in a couple years.

ICANN is also now estimating that FY20 transaction fees from new gTLDs will come in at $5.5 million.

That’s still a few hundred grand less than it was predicting for FY17, back in 2016.

Transaction fees, typically $0.25, are paid by registries with over 50,000 names whenever a domain is created, renewed, or transferred.

The FY19 forecast for new gTLD registrar transaction fees has not been changed from the $4.3 million predicted back in May, but ICANN expects it to increase to $4.6 million in FY20.

ICANN’s budget forecasts are based on activity it’s seeing and conversations with the industry.

It’s previously had to revise new gTLD revenue predictions down in May 2018 and January 2018. 

ICANN is also predicting a bounceback in the number of accredited registrars, an increase of 15 per quarter in FY20 to end the year at 2,564. That would see accreditation fees increase from an estimated $9.9 million to $10.7 million.

The budget is also less than optimistic when it comes to legacy, pre-2012 gTLDs, which includes the likes of .com and .net.

ICANN is now predicting FY19 legacy transaction fees of $49.8 million. That’s compared to its May estimate of $48.6 million.

For FY20, it expects that to go up to $50.5 million, reflecting growth of 2.1%, lower than the 2.6% it predicted last year.

Overall, ICANN expects its funding for FY19 to be $137.1 million, $600,000 less than it was predicting in May.

For FY20, it expects funding to increase to $140.1 million. That’s still lower than the $143 million ICANN had in mind for FY18, before its belt-tightening initiatives kicked off a year ago.

The budget documents are published here for public comment until February 8.

ICANN will also hold a public webinar today at 1700 UTC to discuss the plans. Details of the Adobe Connect room can be found here.

After outcry, ICANNWiki to get ICANN funding next year

ICANNWiki will continue to get funding from its namesake, after community members complained about ICANN’s plan to abandon its $100,000 annual grant.
The independent wiki project will get $66,000 instead in the year beginning July 1, which will drop to $33,000 in ICANN’s fiscal 2020.
The funding will then disappear completely.
It’s a slight reprieve for ICANNWiki, which uses the money not only for its 6,000-article web site but also in-person outreach at events around the world.
The organization had complained about the plans to drop funding back in December, and fans of the site later called on ICANN to change its mind.
Supporters say the site fulfills a vital educational service to the ICANN community.
ICANNWiki also receives over $60,000 a year from corporate sponsors.
ICANN has also offered a reprieve to its Fellowship program in the new draft budget, reducing the number of people accepted into the program by fewer than expected.
It said in January it would slash the program in half, from 60 people per meeting to 30. That number will now drop to 45, at a cost of $151,000.
As discussed in this February article, the community has differing opinions about whether the program is an important way to on-board volunteers into ICANN’s esoteric world, or a way for freeloaders to vacation in exotic locations around the globe.

ICANN slashes new gTLD income forecast AGAIN

ICANN has yet again been forced to lower its funding expectations from new gTLDs, as the industry continues to face growth challenges.
In its latest draft fiscal year 2019 budget, likely to be approved at the end of the month, it’s cut $1.7 million from the amount it expects to receive in new gTLD transaction fees.
That’s even after cutting its estimates for fiscal 2018 in half just a few months back.
New gTLD registry transaction fees — the $0.25 collected whenever a new gTLD domain is registered, renewed or transferred, provided that the gTLD has over 50,000 domains under management — are now estimated at $5.1 million for FY19
That’s up just $500,000 from where it expects FY18, which ends June 30 this year, to finish off.
But it’s down $900,000 or 15% from the $6 million in transaction fees it was forecasting just four months ago.
It’s also still a huge way off the $8.7 million ICANN had predicted for FY18 in March 2017.
Registrar new gTLD transaction fees for FY19, paid by registrars regardless of the size of the TLD, are now estimated to come in at $4.3 million, up $400,000 from the expect FY18 year-end sum.
But, again, that number is down $800,000 from the $5.1 million in registrar fees that ICANN was forecasting in its first-draft FY19 budget.
In short, even when it was slashing its FY18 expectations in half, it was still over-confident on FY19.
On the bright side, at least ICANN is predicting some growth in new gTLD transactions.
And the story is almost exactly reversed when it comes to pre-2012 gTLDs.
For legacy gTLD registry transaction fees — the majority of which are paid by Verisign for .com and .net — ICANN has upped its expectations for FY19 to $49.6 million, compared to its January estimate of $48.7 million (another $900,000 difference, but in the opposite direction).
That growth will be offset by lower growth at the registrar level, where transaction fees for legacy gTLDs are now expected to be $30.2 million for FY19, compared to its January estimate of $30.4 million, a $200,000 deficit.
None of ICANN’s estimates for FY18 transaction fees have changed since the previous budget draft.
But ICANN has also slashed its expectation in terms of fixed fees from new gTLD registries — the $25,000 a year they all must pay regardless of volume.
The org now expects to end FY18 with 1,218 registries paying fees and for that to creep up slightly to 1,221 by the end of FY19.
Back in January, it was hoping to have 1,228 and 1,231 at those milestones respectively.
Basically, it’s decided that 10 TLDs it expected to start paying fees this year actually won’t, and that they won’t next year either. These fixed fees kick in when TLDs are delegated and stop when the contract is terminated.
It now expects registry fixed fees (legacy and new) of $30.5 million for FY19, down from expected $30.6 million for FY18 and and down from its January prediction of $31.1 million.
ICANN’s budget documents can be downloaded here.

ICANNWiki fans protest funding cut

ICANN should continue to fund the independent ICANNWiki project, according to high-profile industry supporters.
As I first reported back in December, ICANN plans to stop giving a $100,000 annual grant to ICANNWiki, a repository of about 6,000 community-sourced articles on the people and organizations involved in the ICANN community.
While ICANNWiki does not merit an explicit mention in ICANN’s latest proposed budget, both organizations have confirmed to DI that the funding is for the chop, as ICANN attempts to rein in spending in the face of depressed revenue.
About a quarter of the 41 comments filed on the budget express support for the wiki.
Consultant Kurt Pritz, a 10-year veteran of ICANN and one of the key architects of its new gTLD program, wrote that the wiki “has been an essential part of the ICANN culture for many years… often saving ICANN meetings from terminal ennui.”
Roland LaPlante, chief marketing officer of Afilias (one of about 15 sponsors listed on ICANNWiki’s front page), wrote:

The complete withdrawal of funding from ICANN so abruptly not only threatens the viability of the project, but rather disrespectfully junks the valuable time and resources that the community has invested over the years. Ultimately the loss of ICANNWiki would be a loss to our overall sense of community.
ICANN should continue to support ICANNWiki at a reasonable level in the next fiscal year. At a minimum, please consider giving the team time to find other sources of funding.

Sandeep Ramchandani, CEO of Radix, concurred, writing:

ICANNNWiki benefits the entire ICANN community. Cutting the funding entirely would effectively halt its operations and be a disservice to the community it serves. It is in ICANN and the community’s best interest to continue funding it in an amount that works for ICANN long-term, and provide ICANNWiki sufficient time to develop a more sustainable business plan.

Simon Cousins, CEO of Chinese market localization specialist Allegravita, said:

Before ICANNWiki, there was precious little information on industry fundamentals in China, and since Allegravita has supported the pro-bono translation of ICANNWiki content into Chinese, the vital platform that is ICANNWiki has been acknowledged hundreds of times.
We do not support the immediate and full withdrawal of funding for ICANNWiki. We guardedly support incremental, annual decreases to give ICANNWiki the time necessary to generate new sponsorship income to cover their costs.

Pablo Rodriguez of .pr ccTLD operator PRTLD, host of ICANN 61 and an ICANNWiki sponsor, wrote:

We believe that they should not be cut out from the ICANN’s Budget, instead, they should be supported and embraced to continue their engaging approach and work with ICANN’s Community and as well newcomers, veterans, special programming for beginners and others in order to deliver what is ICANN and what does the organization do and so forth.

Several other commentators on ICANN’s budget asked ICANN to maintain the funding and I was unable to find any comments supporting its withdrawal.
It’s worth noting that ICANN’s $100,000 is not ICANNWiki’s only financial support. It says it receives an additional $61,000 a year from corporate sponsorship, and as a wiki much of its output is produced by volunteers.
It has been in existence for a decade, but ICANN has only been giving it money for three years.
The costs associated with running it appear to be mostly centered not on maintaining the web site but on its outreach and promotional activities, such as attending meetings and the popular caricatures and card decks it distributes.
It could be argued that ICANNWiki is pretty good value for money when compared to cost of a dedicated outreach professional (the average cost of an ICANN staffer has been estimated at $175,000+ in the latest budget).
ICANNWiki will host an “Edit-A-Thon” during the current ICANN 61 public meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Tuesday at 0900 local time.

Is ICANN still over-estimating revenue from “stagnating” gTLD industry?

ICANN may have slashed millions from its revenue estimate for next year, but it has not slashed deeply enough, according to registrars and others.
Industry growth is flat, and below even ICANN’s “worst case” expectations for the fiscal year starting July 1, registrars told the organization in comments filed on its FY19 budget last week.
The Registrars Stakeholder Group said that “the FY 2019 budget fails to recognize that overall industry growth is flat.”
ICANN’s budget foresees FY19 revenue of $138 million, up $3.5 million on the projected result for FY18.
“These revenue projections presume growth in the domain market that is not aligned with industry expectations,” the RrSG said, pointing to sources such as Verisign’s Domain Name Industry Brief, which calculated 1% industry growth last year.
ICANN’s predictions are based on previous performance and fail to take into account historical “one-time events”, such as the Chinese domain speculation boom of a couple years ago, that probably won’t be repeated, RrSG said.
RrSG also expects the number of accredited registrars to decrease due to industry consolidation and drop-catching registrars reducing their stables of shell accreditations.
(I’ll note here that Web.com has added half a dozen drop-catchers to its portfolio in just the last few weeks, but this goes against the grain of recent trends and may be an aberration.)
RrSG said ICANN’s budget should account for reduced or flat accreditation fee revenue (which as far as I can tell it already does).
The comment, which can be read in full here, concludes:

Taken together, these concerns represent a disconnect between ICANN funding projections, and the revenue expectations of Registrars (and presumably, gTLD Registries) from which these funds are derived. In our view, ICANN’s assessment of budgetary “risks” are too optimistic , and actual performance for FY19 will be significant lower.

For what it’s worth, the Registries Stakeholder Group had this to say about ICANN’s revenue estimates:

Reliable forecasts, characterised by their scrutiny and realism, are fundamental to put together a realistic budget and to avoid unpleasant surprises, such as the shortage ICANN is experiencing in the current fiscal year. The RySG advises ICANN to continue to conduct checks on its forecasts and to re-evaluate the methodology used to predict its income in order to prevent another funding shortfall such as that which the organization experienced in FY18.

Community calls on ICANN to cut staff spending

ICANN should look internally to cut costs before swinging the scythe at the volunteer community.
That’s a key theme to emerge from many comments filed by the community last week on ICANN’s fiscal 2019 budget, which sees spending on staff increase even as revenue stagnates and cuts are made in other key areas.
ICANN said in January that it would have to cut $5 million from its budget for the year beginning July 1, 2018, largely due to a massive downwards revision in how many new gTLD domains it expects the industry to process.
At the same time, the organization said it will increase its payroll by $7.3 million, up to $76.8 million, with headcount swelling to 425 by the end of the fiscal year and staff receiving on average a 2% pay rise.
In comments filed on the budget, many community members questioned whether this growth can be justified.
Among the most diplomatic objections came from the GNSO Council, which said:

In principle, the GNSO Council believes that growth of staff numbers should only occur under explicit justification and replacements due to staff attrition should always occur with tight scrutiny; especially in times of stagnate funding levels.

The Council added that it is not convinced that the proposed budget funds the policy work it needs to do over the coming year.
The Registrars Stakeholder Group noted the increased headcount with concern and said:

Given the overall industry environment where organizations are being asked to do more with less, we are not convinced these additional positions are needed… The RrSG is not yet calling for cuts to ICANN Staff, we believe the organization should strive to maintain headcount at FY17 Actual year-end levels.

The RrSG shared the GNSO Council’s concern that policy work, ICANN’s raison d’etre, may suffer under the proposed budget.
The At-Large Advisory Committee said it “does not support the direction taken in this budget”, adding:

Specifically we see an increase in staff headcount and personnel costs while services to the community have been brutally cut. ICANN’s credibility rests upon the multistakeholder model, and cuts that jeopardize that model should not be made unless there are no alternatives and without due recognition of the impact.
…
Staff increases may well be justified, but we must do so we a real regard to costs and benefits, and these must be effectively communicated to the community

ALAC is concerned that the budget appears to cut funding to many projects that see ICANN reach out to, and fund participation by, non-industry potential community members.
Calling for “fiscal prudence”, the Intellectual Property Constituency said it “encourages ICANN to take a hard look at personnel costs and the use of outside professional services consultants.”
The IPC is also worried that ICANN may have underestimated the costs of its contractual compliance programs.
The Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group had some strong words:

The organisation’s headcount, and personnel costs, cannot continue to grow. We feel strongly that the proposal to grow headcount by 25 [Full-Time Employees] to 425 FTE in a year where revenue has stagnated cannot be justified.
…
With 73% of the overall budget now being spent on staff and professional services, there is an urgent need to see this spend decrease over time… there is a need to stop the growth in the size of the staff, and to review staff salaries, bonuses, and fringe benefits.

NCSG added that ICANN could perhaps reduce costs by relocating some positions from its high-cost Los Angeles headquarters to the “global south”, where the cost of living is more modest.
The ccNSO Strategic and Operational Planning Standing Committee was the only commentator, that I could find, to straight-up call for a freeze in staff pay rises. While also suggesting moving staff to less costly parts of the globe, it said:

The SOPC – as well as many other community stakeholders – seem to agree that ICANN staff are paid well enough, and sometimes even above market average. Considering the current DNS industry trends and forecasts, tougher action to further limit or even abolish the annual rise in compensation would send a strong positive signal to the community.

It’s been suggested that, when asked to find areas to cut, ICANN department heads prioritized retaining their own staff, which is why we’re seeing mainly cuts to community funding.
I’ve only summarized the comments filed by formal ICANN structures here. Other individuals and organizations filing comments in their own capacity expressed similar views.
I was unable to find a comment explicitly supporting increased staffing costs. Some groups, such as the Registries Stakeholder Group, did not address the issue directly.
While each commentator has their own reasons for wanting to protect the corner of the budget they tap into most often, it’s a rare moment when every segment of the community (commercial and non-commercial, domain industry and IP interests) seem to be on pretty much the same page on an issue.

ICANN mulls $68 million raid on auction war chest

ICANN wants to put away another $68 million for a rainy day and it’s considering raiding its new gTLD auction war chest in order to do so.
It’s also thinking about dipping into the pool of cash still left over from new gTLD application fees in order to bolster is “reserve fund” from its current level of $70 million to its target of $138 million.
But, as a relief to registrants, it appears to have ruled out steep fee increases, which had been floated as an option.
The reserve fund is basically a safety net that ICANN could use to keep the lights on in the event that revenue should suddenly plummet dramatically and unexpectedly.
If, for example, Verisign returned to its old antagonistic ways and refused to pay its .com fees for some reason, ICANN would lose about a third of its annual revenue but would be able to tap its reserve until the legal fisticuffs were resolved.
ICANN said in a discussion document (pdf) this week that it took $36 million from the reserve since 2014 in order to complete the IANA transition. Over the same period, its annual budget has swelled from about $85 million to $138 million and contributions back into the reserve have been minimal.
That’s left it with a meager $70 million squirreled away, $68 million shy of its longstanding target level of one year’s budget.
ICANN is now saying that it wants to replenish the fund in less than five years.
About $15 million of its target would come from cost-cutting its operations budget over the period.
It also wants to take at least $36 million from the new gTLD auction proceeds fund, which currently stands at $104 million (with another $132 million incoming should Verisign successfully obtain .web over the objections of rival bidders).
The remaining $17 million could come from “leftover” new gTLD application fees — that fund is currently about $80 million — or from more cost-cutting or more auction proceeds, or from a combination of the three.
A fourth option — increasing the per-transaction fees registrants are charged via their registries and registrars — appears to have been ruled out.
My back-of-the-envelope maths suggests that an annual per-transaction increase of about $0.07 would have been needed to raise $68 million over five years.
The proposal is open for public comment until April 25.