ICANN agrees to remove price caps on .org domain names in the new agreement with the operator of the top-level domain, Public Interest Registry (PIR). The decision follows controversies around the move, which included objections from registrants, non-profit entities, charities, religious organizations and others. Following the announcement, PIR once again assures the community it “is a mission-driven non-profit registry and currently has no specific plans for any price changes for .ORG.” There are currently close to 10.3 million .org domains under PIR’s management.

— PIR says: “Should there be a need for a sensible price increase at some point in the future, we will provide advanced notice to the public. The .ORG community is considered in every decision we make, and we are incredibly proud of the more than 15 years we have spent as a responsible steward of .ORG. PIR remains committed to acting in the best interest of the .ORG community for years to come.” Caveat: Industry pundits worry any future management or board changes could change everything.

— ICA is “profoundly disturbed” by ICANN’s decision. In a statement released following the announcement, Internet Commerce Association (ICA) says: “Apparently the ICANN Board allowed ICANN Staff to proceed to execute the renewal agreement without any concern over registrant interests, despite the ICA bringing this issue directly to its attention. The decision to ignore ICANN stakeholders in apparent total disregard for its self-professed ‘bottom-up multi-stakeholder model’ is of great concern and calls into question ICANN’s ability to govern the domain name system in the public interest.”