VeriSign Jacks Up .com, .net Prices To the Max

se7en writes "VeriSign is jacking up prices for the .com and .net domains for the second year running, increasing both by the maximum 7% allowed under its exclusive contract with ICANN. 'Assuming that VeriSign continues the 7 percent rise each year (which seems reasonable given the company's history), registrars will be looking at $9.00 for .com domains by the time the current contract ends in 2012 — a 50 percent increase in six years.' Registrars have no choice but to pony up, and chances are they'll pass the pain on to customers."

Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[orkysoft (93727)]

I wonder if this will decrease the amount of spam sites that clutter up so many Google search results...

Re:

[cheater512 (783349)]

Unlikely. A couple of extra bucks wont do anything.

Re:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[shanen (462549)]

This was exactly my first reaction to the article. Anything that increases the spammer's costs is a good thing, but it's basically too indirect to really matter. Rather Verisign is just acting to increase their own profits and using the spammers as an excuse.

Since we're on the topic of spam (and domains are included below), here's my latest suggestion to Gmail:

Basically Gmail is losing value for all of us as it becomes spam soaked. Even their filtering is having troubles with false positives and false negatives--and the spam is just increasing. Therefore I think Google should act more aggressively to drive the spammers away from Gmail.

My latest anti-spam idea is a SuperReport option. (Kind of like SpamCop, but not so lazy.) If you click on the SuperReport option, Gmail would explode the spam and try to analyze it for you to help go after the spammers more aggressively. Here is one way to implement it:

The first pass would be a low-cost quickie that would also act like a kind of CAPTCHA. This would just be an automated pass looking for obvious patterns like email addresses and URLs. The email would then be exploded and shown to the person making the report. The thoughtful responses for the second pass would guide the system in going after the spammers--making Gmail a *VERY* hostile environment for spammers to the point that they would stop spamming Gmail.

For example, if the first pass analysis finds an email address in the header, the exploded options might be "Obvious fake, ignore", "Plausible fake used to improve delivery", "Apparently valid drop address for replies", "Possible Joe job", and "Other". (Of course there should be pop-up explanations for help, which would be easy if it's done as a radio button. Also, Google always needs to allow for "Other" because the spammers are so damn innovative. In the "Other" case, the second pass should call for an explanation of why it is "Other".)

If the first pass analysis finds a URL, the exploded options should be things like "Drugs", "Stock scam", "Software piracy", "Loan scam", "419 scam", "Prostitution", "Fake merchandise", "Reputation theft", "Possible Joe job", and "Other". I think URLs should include a second radio button for "Registered Domain" (default), "Redirection", "Possible redirection", "Dynamic DNS routing", and "Other". (Or perhaps that would be another second-pass option?)

At the bottom of the expanded first pass analysis there should be some general options about the kind of spam and suggested countermeasures, and the submit SuperReport button. This would trigger the heavier second pass where Gmail's system would take these detailed results of the human analysis of the spam and use them to really go after the spammers in a more serious way.

I think Gmail should also rate the reporters on their spam-fighting skills, and figure out how smart they are when they are analyzing the spam. I want to earn a "Spam Fighter First Class" merit badge!

If you agree with these ideas--or have better ones, I suggest you try to call them to Google's attention. Google still seems to be an innovative and responsive company--and they claim they want to fight evil, too. More so if many people write to them? (I even think they recently implemented one of my suggestions to improve the Groups...)

Re:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[DigiShaman (671371)]

OTOH, think how much money companies are spending to filter out all that SPAM. Everything from Firewall, to Anti-virus solutions to block the stuff. That doesn't come cheap depending on how many employees or customers there are effected. If this 7% does cut into the spammers profits in a way that it shuts them down, it will be a lot cheaper over all than the current meathods of fighting spam. Oh, and think how much bandwidth it would free up around the world.

7% increase to knock out the spammers? God, we can only dream of it!

Re:

[transami (202700)]

There is a simple solution to email spam. It's called a white list.

A while back I worte an email to a fellow programmer whom I never before emailed. His email system automatically replied asking that I confirm my message was from a person by answering a bran dead simple question. By replying appropriately I was white listed and he got my original message.

Ultimately of course AI's might circumvent any such system, but those days are still ways off, so I don't know why email engineers haven't made this a stan

Re:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[shanen (462549)]

Don't confuse challenge/response with whitelisting--but it doesn't matter since SMTP doesn't verify the sender. Any technical response to a fundamentally economic problem is only going to be a bandaid at best.

However, we're getting too far off topic, if'n you ask me. The part that is relevant to this discussion is how much of the spammers' costs are related to domain acquisition, and the answer is 'precious little' and there are always other ways to work around it. In particular, some of the most annoying spammers around here are hosting their own websites and using dynamic DNS services to route their suckers without ever buying any domains of their own.

Re:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[Dan541 (1032000)]

A while back I worte an email to a fellow programmer whom I never before emailed. His email system automatically replied asking that I confirm my message was from a person by answering a bran dead simple question. By replying appropriately I was white listed and he got my original message.

I get 5 or 6 of those a month from people I never emailed, I report them all as spam.

~Dan

Re:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[arth1 (260657)]

Applying a Turing test to the sender is only successful if you assume that (a) machines can't send wanted mail, and (b) you receiving the e-mail is important enough for the human senders to jump through an extra hoop.

The first one is obviously false. There are newsletters I want, and automated alerts, like a bill becoming due. And I want to continue to receive these even if the sending company changes the sender address.

The second is false too. I can quite well imagine e-mails with something important to the recipient and not the sender, and if the sender gets a reply back asking them to identify themselves, they won't follow up. Because it wasn't important to them. No matter how important it might have been for the recipient.
An example: If I had tickets to a concert I can't go to after all, and knowing you're a fan, I sent you an e-mail offering them to you. If I got a reply back saying I need to identify myself as a human, I'd mutter "and the horse you rode in on", and either give the tickets to someone else or simply throw them away.

Re:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[v(*_*)vvvv (233078)]

Except for emails sent by automatons. A server that sent an order confirmation email is not going to "reply" to any emails. Many important emails are sent from non-observed email boxes.

Sometimes an email may be sent from alternate or temporary accounts. This is more often the case when something is urgent.

Also my mom won't react to such an email. Most people assume that an email sent is an email sent, and any emails requesting some further action are always going to have problems.

Re:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[Jurily (900488)]

Email system: "What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?"
You: "What do you mean? An African or European swallow?"
Email system: "Huh? I... I don't know that."
[email system explodes]

Re:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[BlueParrot (965239)]

There is a simple solution to email spam

No there isn't. Don't make me post the form at you...

Re:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[Cairnarvon (901868)]

For legitimate users the domain is the least expensive part of running a website. For squatters, who generally have thousands upon thousands of domains all pointing to one or a handful of servers, it's not.
Or it wouldn't be if not for domain kiting.

Re:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[mpe (36238)]

A 7% increase is nothing for spammers.

Especially if they are also scammers who don't pay their bills in the first place.

Re:

[Kozz (7764)]

HAHAHAHAHA... oh, you were serious??

I think changing policies on domain tasting would do a hell of a lot more.

And?

[TubeSteak (669689)]

Is there any reason Verisign wouldn't jack up prices by the max allowed in their contract?

Re:And?

[Mr. Slippery (47854)]

Is there any reason Verisign wouldn't jack up prices by the max allowed in their contract?

In a sane world, behaving like a bunch of asshats by trying to squeeze us for every penny they can, would mean that their contract wouldn't be renewed by ICANN; so there would be such an incentive. In a sane world.

Of course, we do not live in a sane world.

Re:And?

[BrookHarty (9119)]

Well if you don't like them, go register your domain somewhere else!

Oh wait.

Re:

[MrCawfee (13910)]

How would a domain registry possibly function without it being a monopoly? Well it probally couldn't. Someone has to publish the root zones, and maintain those servers, and do you really want one company running one root server and another company running another? Well it really can't.

The system we have now is fine as it is, yeah Verisign controls ICANN (they are pretty much the only ones who talk at registrar meetings), but anything they do that is extremely controversial gets rejected.

And as far as compet

Re:And?

[MrNaz (730548)]

You fail sarcasm. Totally. You could say that you have failed to the max.

Re:And?

[mlts (1038732)]

Hate to be a devil's advocate here, and but Verisign in some ways has to, because publically traded companies like VRSN have to show their shareholders they are earning as much money as the traffic can bear, and if not, why not.

If they don't, shareholders will become former shareholders, and/or try to find reasons to sue. This is true about any company, if any company cuts prices on a flagship product, they need to have a good reason (such as a new model, competition is forcing their hand, or perhaps going for higher volume sales) to explain why to shareholders why they did so and why they chose to get less income.

Verisign isn't perfect, but the real culprits are ICANN, and the short range thinking of stockholders in the US who only care about what is coming next quarter, rather than being with a company long term. I'd rather invest in a company who has multiple subsequent quarterly charges against their income for R&D than one which always makes the numbers (even barely) each quarter, but really has no real direction to expand.

Re:

[Martin Blank (154261)]

It's one of the reasons I'm considering leaving my company. While I do generally worship at the altar of the almighty dollar, there are some sects that are a little too eager to keep the money for a chosen select few without anything more than lip-service about the sweat of the parishioners. I don't mind working for a publicly-traded company, as long as their stated commitment to their people is a commitment to all of their people.

Re:

[TheLink (130905)]

"don't mind working for a publicly-traded company, as long as their stated commitment to their people is a commitment to all of their people."

That's more likely to happen if it's a Cooperative.

Even if Cooperatives do as well or even better than Companies (thinking long term is typically better than "let's sack everyone and boost profits for next quarter"), there is currently not as much incentive for people to start up cooperatives - it typically takes a lot of effort and risk to be the "first boss" and get

Re:And?

[CastrTroy (595695)]

If your running a website, the $9 registration fee is pretty minimal. If you can't afford that, you probably aren't getting much out of having your site anyway.

Re:And?

[repka (1102731)]

I don't mind paying $9 dollars, I mind paying them exclusively to Verisign.

Re:And?

[garett_spencley (193892)]

I pay $9.20 USD right now / .com domain. I think that $9 is what VERISIGN gets. Not what people actually pay.

Granted, I agree. If you can't afford $10 - $15 / YEAR for your domain then you're not getting much out of it. But then again, not all .com's are for-profit. Some people don't like that and think that .com should ONLY be for commercial entities, and I agree that's absolutely what it was designed for initially. Only problem is if you don't register a .com for your domain then a squatter will. And, unfortunately, unless your traffic consists mostly of tech-savvy users then the majority of your type-in traffic will hit the .com first.

Re:And?

[number11 (129686)]

If you can't afford $10 - $15 / YEAR for your domain then you're not getting much out of it.

Well, you're not getting much money out of it.

Well, in Australia

[Psychotria (953670)]

I would love to pay just $9.00 for a registration fee. Try > $100 here for a .com.au :/

Re:

[neonmonk (467567)]

.com.au is restricted to businesses in Australia. You have to actually supply an Australian Business Number (ABN) to register it.

$100 is a bit of an exaggeration. I paid $70 for two years and registered a .net.au & .com.au (so $35 for two years)

You just have to shop around.

Inflation

[copponex (13876)]

The dollar is dropping like a rock. If they are an international company, they probably have no choice. When did they make this contract? They may even be getting screwed.

Re:And?

[TubeSteak (669689)]

In a sane world, behaving like a bunch of asshats by trying to squeeze us for every penny they can, would mean that their contract wouldn't be renewed by ICANN; so there would be such an incentive.

You seem to forget that ICANN already approved this (and future) price increases in advance.

Verisign can't change prices without negotiating with ICANN.
So really, any name calling and/or accusations of penny squeezing should be directed at ICANN.

Re:And?

[Brian Gordon (987471)]

hmm 7%.. verisign is just trying to catch up with the rate of inflation :)

Re:

[Brian Gordon (987471)]

Maybe slashdot should be worried about scaring off customers with its stupid lingo in the title..

Re:

[CastrTroy (595695)]

What customers?

Re:

[Nullav (1053766)]

They could raise the price to $200/year and it still wouldn't make a difference because of domain tasting. (Really, who actually gets buyer's remorse over a domain name?)

Can't say I mind...

[pushing-robot (1037830)]

There's a very limited number of reasonable .com and .net domains out there. If they aren't worth USD $10 a year to you, maybe you should let someone else have a chance?

I think registration should be something like $100 one-time + $25/yr. Yeah, I'd spend a lot more, but it would be worth it to kill squatters.

Re:Can't say I mind...

[Scaba (183684)]

It wouldn't kill squatters. It would kill things like indie band and vanity domains.

Re:Can't say I mind...

[garett_spencley (193892)]

The problem is that "lay-people" consider .com to be "it". And if you register "my-indie-band.org" some squatter WILL register "my-indie-band.com" ... and when your fans go to look you up they'll type in the ".com" before the ".org".

Is it bullshit ? Yeah, absolutely. Is there much we can do about it ? Not really.

Re:Can't say I mind...

[zippthorne (748122)]

If you have a band, even an indie band, and you're selling stuff or live performances, wouldn't that classify as "commercial" enough for a .com domain?

Re:

[CastrTroy (595695)]

All people who drive are criminals. They are killing the environment. :P. Ok on a more serious note, it sucks, but it's probably the only way to keep the squatters away. Make it not financially viable to operate, and they will go away. However, I would support that the extra fees go to charities, so that they can be put to better use than lining the pockets of verisign.

The USA: Land of Competition

[The Fanta Menace (607612)]

The United States is really big on competition. Everyone else has to compete. Why is this monopoly allowed to exist?

Re:The USA: Land of Competition

[Jah-Wren Ryel (80510)]

The United States is really big on competition.

Correction - the united states TALKS really big on competition.

The only real competition that the government cares about is who can shove the most 'campaign funds' into each politician's pockets.

Re:The USA: Land of Competition

[the_womble (580291)]

The US used to be the land of competition - which is why it became so economically successful.

Things have changed: they broke up Standard Oil and AT & T, but they have not broken up Microsoft, and current regulation of telecoms is pretty poor.

It is not just a US problem either. "Business friendly" governments and regulators all over the world are prepared to accept fairly weak arguments for tolerating monopolies, and seem to be quite happy to regard oligopoly [moneyterms.co.uk] as an adequate level of competition.

inflation

[TheSHAD0W (258774)]

That'll be what, 1 Euro by then?

Value of the once almighty dollar.

[lancejjj (924211)]

increasing both by the maximum 7% allowed under its exclusive contract with ICANN

But that 7% increase is in U.S. dollars.

Given the recent drop of the value of the dollar, that means that much of the rest of the world whose currency isn't based on the US dollar will see a 1% price drop, instead of a 8% price drop.

Prices need to go up much further

[Salgat (1098063)]

I am amazed that such a valuable commodity is so cheap still, especially when the low price only benefits those who purchase massive amounts of domains. I wish the prices were at least $20 a year.

I dont understand

[JimboFBX (1097277)]

I dont understand- is this entry a joke? This is about as ground-breaking as "a local McDonald's increases $1 menu to $1.05 menu!" In other news, inflation was 8% last year!

The contract does not end in 2012

[karl.auerbach (157250)]

The contract with Verisign does not end in 2012.

ICANN granted to Verisign a perpetual right of renewal.

In other words, unless Verisign goes out and illegally clubs baby seals (and maybe even if they do) they get the right to renew the contract again and again and again and again...

Has ICANN ever bothered to consider the actual costs that Verisign incurs to deliver those domain name registrations? No.

It has been estimated that the amount may be as low as $0.02 per year. In which case ICANN has created a guaranteed profit to Verisign of about $420,000,000 eavery year - with you and me paying.

Speaking of inflation...

[OakDragon (885217)]

...somebody tell the GoDaddy girl that her tits are going to have to get bigger.

Read the Contract

[by Anonymous Coward]

The contract is on the ICANN site. People should read it before making statements that aren't true. Verisign can not raise the fee every year, only four of the six years in a contract period. Look at the payments they need to make to ICANN: $1.5 million rising to $3 million a quarter over the contract. Look at the SLAs for .com and .net (5-100 milliseconds), 100% availability per year on some services or penalties. How many company's can provide that level of service for the millions or billions of queries they get a day, especially from the squatters that register hundreds of thousands of names a day and release them during the grace period. Verisign doesn't make any money from the squatters yet has to store and report on all of that data. If people think the business is such a cash cow and easy to do, why didn't they bid on the contract? They could be billionaires by now.

http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/net/ [icann.org]
http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/com/ [icann.org]

Re:How soon people forget...

[GeorgeMcBay (106610)]

And yet other people forget that before $140 domains, domain registrations were free, first-come first-served. I still own a couple of domains that I registered for free and didn't pay any fees on for the first few years I owned them.