Once upon a time there was a lawsuit between ICANN and Verisign. Last year, in an effort to settle that suit ICANN sold out all domain registrants in the .com/.net name space. Every mom, every pop, every company that holds a domain name had no say in the matter. ICANN basically said to Verisign: "We agree to let you hose the masses if you stop suing us".
I don't necessarily mind paying more for domains so much as I mind the money going to a monopolistic regulator which has historically had little regard for the registrants/registrars it should be serving.
Here's to hoping some oversight branch of government gets the vision and the courage to thoroughly investigate the machinations that led to the ICANN/Verisign contract renewal.
Somebody needs to protect the rights of the registrants which built and marketed the .com name space through years of toil, blood, sweat and tears. Versign acts like a monopoly .. I see them as the Pigs and all domain-registrants collectively as the Horse in Orwell's fable. There is no freedom without justice and the machinations that led to this contract renewal certainly feel like a great injustice to registrants of the .com / .net space.
To All Registrars,
VeriSign, Inc. and it's wholly owned subsidiaries ("VNDS") is hereby notifying all registrars of a fee change for .com and/or .net domain names effective October 15, 2007. In accordance with our contract, ICANN has already been notified. Details as follows:
1. VNDS' fee for each annual increment of a new and renewal .com domain name registration and for each transfer of a .com domain name registration from one ICANN-accredited registrar to another will be US $6.42, exclusive of any ICANN Variable Registry-Level Fee (as defined in the .com Registry Agreement) or any other ICANN fee;
and
2. VNDS' fee for each annual increment of a new and renewal .net domain name registration and for each transfer of a .net domain name registration from one ICANN-accredited registrar to another will be US $3.85, exclusive of any ICANN Variable Registry-Level Fee (as defined in the .net Registry Agreement) or any other ICANN fee.
Except for the above-described fee changes, all other terms of the relevant agreements (.com and .net Registry Agreements and Registry-Registrar Agreements) remain unchanged.
Please contact the Customer Affairs Office at [email protected] if you have specific questions regarding this notice.
Best regards,
XX XXXXXXX
Director, Customer Support
VeriSign, Inc.
www.verisign.com
Disgusting.
Yeah, right. We all know how costs are rising for internet services.
And now ICANN wants to run overseas so they can't get sued.
What the f*&k are they thinking?
I hope the ICA will give them a good ground and pound until they tap out!
Posted by: Rob Sequin | April 05, 2007 at 07:31 PM
I realize that logic has no place in the discussion related to ICANN/Verisign but against that truth I'd like to pose a question: What is the difference between .com and .net as related to Registry cost and fees?
Although I believe pricing for both is insanely high, it seems to me that if either of those two ought to be $6.42, it should be .net, with .com requiring a much smaller per domain fee, if only because of the whole "economy of scale" thing.
Same "thin" Registry design, same root servers, same "security concerns" (I'm not knocking security, it's imperative, but the increased cost blamed on such). What am I missing? Even with ICANN selling us out, even a caveman in the right position should have dealt with this before it could actually be implemented. Okay, okay, it's not implemented *yet*... I suppose some entity can step up to the plate and kill this before it go LIVE.
As a side note, perhaps Verisign knows it won't actually pass muster but by putting this notice out they'll get a ton of renewals and lots of cash to play with now. They're tricky little turkeys.
Posted by: Tom McDonald | April 05, 2007 at 10:45 PM
***FS** Bottom line IMO: Any name registry can charge whatever it desires for a domain name .. "BUT" once you "sucker people in", by selling your name-space one way, giving people hope and 'dreams' for a certain outcome, and you then "change the rules" at some later point in time because those early registrants you suckered, built your namespace into the defacto global standard; 'THAT' is when there is inequity/grounds for a class action etc etc etc. One day 'smart people' will figure that out. I do not think it will end as quietly and peacably as the registry would assume.
Posted by: Frank Schilling | April 06, 2007 at 01:15 AM
You guys are all kidding right? This is the first increase verisign has put forth in almost a decade. Do any of us have any idea what the infrastructure costs are associated with running these massive systems. When was the last time a verisign hosted root server went down? How much innovation has gone into scaling to meet the exponential growth in domain lookups? We are talking about CENTS per YEAR aren't we? What do you pay PER MONTH to ensure you get a dial tone on your phone...? Think about it...
***FS*** "Everything" in tech goes down in price .. not up.. Verisign's "costs" for doing all that "stuff" have gone way down on avrg. .NET went down from 6 dollars years ago when it was competitively rebid.. now its getting raised again... did Verisign give us worse service back then? No. This is a pork baby.. porky pork pork pork. It has NOTHING to do with infrastructure. 100 companies could do a better job for less money Scott. Verisign just happens to find itself in the fortunate position of running a monopoly as it relates to the .com tld. Even if that argument held water (and it does not IMO), then settling a lawsuit between two parties by raising prices on a third is an utterly is abhorent way to go about it.
Posted by: Scott R | April 11, 2007 at 02:20 PM
You respond as if you've built and run infrastructure that handles TENS Of BILLIONS of lookups per DAY. Now, I don't pretend to know the details of what it takes to run an infrastructure like that but I'm sure not EVERYTHING in this world gets cheaper. Look I'm not interested in paying more for ANYTHING, just seems like a lot of who-haw over a few cents per year. I'll say it again, what do you think the phone company would charge you if they were adding phone numbers at the rate we're using domain names...wait they are adding cell phone numbers at a similar rate...how much would a phone number with no service cost to an end user per MONTH?....I assure you its more then the 50 CENTS per month we pay for domain names. You should focus your attention on the cable companys, natural gas and oil companys...those are the PIGS in this world... IMO of course.
***FS*** When the phone co's set up a number there is real infrastructure. Verisign doesn't host the domains, they don't provide DNS.. they don't even run the whois (registrars do that). These guys run the root.. And a tens of million of bucks worth of infrastructure can run trillions of queries (not billions). Don't get suckered into thinking that this is harder than it is, or that Verisign is the only company in the world that can do this funky voodoo dance. Everyone I know and respect in technology on every board aptly points out that Verisign could do this job for "so much less". The troubling part is they got this price increase and (its really a 50% increase over 5 years Scott.) on the foundation of a lawsuit with ICANN. And it was settled on the back of an unrelated third party. You baby. This was a backroom deal, it was not competitively bid. At least with oil there is more than one company .. with .com there is only Verisign. And don't tell the world they can go to .org .. its a .com world. This post is about a regulator applying an unfair tax that was levied in an inequitable way. I hope the CFIT lawsuit gets to go to trial. OR some oversight branch of govt starts sending ICANN/VGRS subpeoneas. You can put lipstick on this pig.. but its still a pig IMO.
Posted by: Scott R | April 11, 2007 at 07:18 PM
>What do you pay PER MONTH to ensure you get a dial tone on
>your phone...?
Cough. Telco's wrote the book on over-charging for electronic-based services. Verisign's just moved their model over to the DNS.
Don't fall for the FUD.
Posted by: Drewbert | April 11, 2007 at 07:44 PM
Gimme an R
Gimme an I
Gimme a C
Gimme an O
What does it spell?
***FS*** Ha ha ha .. you truly missed your calling in comedy Drew. Ole' . :)
Posted by: Drewbert | April 11, 2007 at 07:54 PM
When I was a kid, I had dreams of becoming
a tycoon with lots of monopolys.
Now i Realize Verisign has beaten me to it.
Now all i have left are my dreams but with no hope.
Now I just keep repeating i dont think ican i dont think ican i dont think ican.
Posted by: Ken | June 11, 2007 at 01:16 AM