Uniregistry put out a press release that they will put in pricing protection for existing registrants. The announcements about price increases upset many.

Frank Schilling noted:

“Creating a legacy tier of prices for inaugural registrants in our niche, premium top-level domains is technically more difficult,” said Frank Schilling, Managing Director of Uniregistry, “but it’s the right thing to do for those pioneering individuals and companies who have staked their claims in the new Internet real estate.”

Full release:

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., April 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — On March 8, 2017, the Registry Services Division of Uniregistry, Corp., a leading domain name registration services company, announced price increases on many of its top-level domains.

Prior to that announcement, Uniregistry had consulted with many of its registration business partners about the upcoming price increases. “The registration providers we consulted reported that differentiating prices based on the time of the registration was technically difficult and confusing for customers,” said Bret Fausett, head of the Registry Services Team. “Based on that feedback, and considering the small number of registrants affected, we made the difficult decision to raise prices for all registrants.”

“After the announcement, however, we, and our registration partners, have heard clearly from our end users that the ability to register ten-years at the existing price does not ameliorate the pain of subsequent price increases for registrants facing substantial price increases,” said Mr. Fausett. “So, for the names in our highest-priced tiers, the price changes will affect only new registrations. We are asking our registration partners to do whatever is necessary to enable this approach.”

“Creating a legacy tier of prices for inaugural registrants in our niche, premium top-level domains is technically more difficult,” said Frank Schilling, Managing Director of Uniregistry, “but it’s the right thing to do for those pioneering individuals and companies who have staked their claims in the new Internet real estate.”

“I am also pleased to report that we will use the occasion of these price changes to vastly simplify our premium names program,” said Mr. Schilling. “Rather than many tiers of premium pricing, we will now have only one. Most of our very best names will move to the base price, freeing up large swaths of Internet real estate, at lower prices. This change will reduce prices on more than one million premium domain names, which represents hundreds of millions in price reductions. These reductions will be announced to registrars later this month and should reach consumers this summer.”

The new price increase will take effect on September 8, 2017. Registry price protections will be in place for customers registering in .Audio, .BlackFriday, .Diet, .Flowers, .Guitars, .Hiphop, .Hosting, .Juegos and .Property. Customers who register domains in name spaces with price protection before September 8, 2017 will have their domains renew without any increase in the registry fee.

Uniregistry will have price reductions for its premium domain name program in place by the end of Q2, 2017.