Jim Bidzos: Well, it’s certainly true that one thing, I guess maybe I could have added, I didn’t, so I’m glad you asked this question, to Rob’s last question about China is that, that’s where we’re seeing other TLDs filling some of the demand there. These are TLDs that are priced extremely low. We’re talking about sub-$1, in many cases. So that’s certainly a factor. Again, we don’t control the retail pricing. The channel is pricing our products .com, .net, sort of in a broad range. Some are pricing renewals above $20, others are selling registrations and renewals much closer to the wholesale price. It varies. I think that focus on ARPU is probably a primary — a factor in the US along with the reduced spend on marketing. And I guess if I wanted to point to anything that we maybe could have done sooner or recognized a little better would be adapting these marketing programs sooner, but we’re getting them into market now.
So I think that will address some of the issues. But I think the place where you’re seeing others make a huge dent is definitely in China. There are literally sub-dollar TLDs that are being sold there that are experiencing some growth, that’s gone on and off over the years with different TLDs spiking way up and way down and you can see that in our DNIB report.
George Kilguss: We don’t have the flexibility — as much flexibility, I would say, in new gTLDs in certain markets. So we treat all our customers the same. And so sometimes when we have differences in exchange rates overseas that can also be a factor in demand.
Ygal Arounian: So just a follow-up on that then. With pricing focus with Amendment 35 and the structure of the current contracts, do you think that there’s maybe less pricing power in the domain? I mean I would think still [indiscernible] [not] retail $20 a year, it’s not the highest consideration purchase. Does that give you any pause or thoughts on how you think about pricing at a wholesale level? I know you don’t control the retail level, but how does that flow through and how you think about the wholesale level?
Jim Bidzos: Well, I think the registrars have to make their own decisions on pricing. I think some of the higher renewal prices are, in my opinion, a testament to the stickiness and the high quality of the com product, and that the largest segment we have is people who brand themselves on it, and those enjoy particularly high renewal rates. So I think it’s just easy, if you have a product, a subscription product, that has strong stickiness like this, a functional TLD that’s supported with a 26-year uptime record and all the other benefits that come with it. I think that’s not particularly surprising. I’d attribute it more to the cyclical nature of ARPU. And new customer acquisition. And some of our programs are designed to accommodate the different business models that will get them more focused on new customer acquisition.
Ygal Arounian: And last one from me. We get a lot of questions as we get closer to the date on the .com renewal, and I’m assuming there’s nothing new per se to say about it, but maybe just help us walk through the time line of the renewal. What are some of the key timing things to think about or what the time line might look like? And understanding, I think you’ve been through the idea that you have, the presumptive right of renewal here and how the contract works is you’re keeping the details the same. But any risks or other things for investors to think about as we get closer to that renewal date?
Jim Bidzos: I don’t know what you mean by risk. I mean the contract has a presumptive right of renewal. And as long as we’re meeting all SLAs, the contract says it shall be renewed. But the contract is not due for actual — the deadline date is the end of November, so it’s a ways out. But we are now engaged with ICANN and are in the process of exchanging drafts to the com renewal. So it’s early in that process and com is in, like I said, not due until the end of November. And the presumptive right of renewal, of course, was used with .net, and we had a — we anticipate an on-time renewal as we had last year for .net. So I think these — ICANN has this in all of their thousands of gTLD contracts. There’s a rolling constant exercise of this presumptive right of renewal, and we expect com, just like net and just like all the other gTLDs, to renew.
Operator: And we’ll take an additional question from Rob Oliver with Baird.
Rob Oliver: Jim, last quarter, you got a question on .web, so I think I’ll ask it again. I’m not sure that there’s been — I know this doesn’t seem like there’s been any official update, but anything you guys have heard or seen or anything we should be aware of that constitutes any change? And could you just provide us your updated perspective on what you see as the possible time line or evolution of that web here?
Jim Bidzos: I guess I would call it an update. You said movement, I guess this could qualify as that as well. So the one update I have is that VeriSign and NDC have just filed an application to participate in this second IRP like we did the first one, as you know. We had that — for context, we have this process where last April, ICANN’s Board of Directors voted without objection to delegate .web to NDC. Altanovo then filed the second IRP complaint against ICANN. This second IRP is looking for the same relief to award .web to Altanovo that the first IRP panel rejected twice, sanctioning them the second time, and it’s exactly what ICANN’s Board committee and full Board also rejected last April. So we continue to believe that ICANN and the IRP panel should dispense as quickly as possible with what we believe to be baseless claims against ICANN.
And by the way, Altanovo has no existing registry business, and as far as we can tell, whoever actually owns and is funding this litigation remains a secret. So the update is that we filed an application and we’ll see where the second IRP goes.
Rob Oliver: I’ll have to go back to the record to look at that again. But very helpful.
Operator: And that does conclude the question-and-answer session. I’ll now turn the conference back over to Mr. David Atchley for final comments.
David Atchley: Thank you, operator. Please call the Investor Relations department with any follow-up questions from this call. Thank you for your participation. This concludes our call. Have a good evening.
Operator: Thank you. That does conclude today’s conference. We do thank you for your participation. Have an excellent day.
