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]

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

Re:

[cheater512]

Unlikely. A couple of extra bucks wont do anything.

Re:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[shanen]

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...)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an off-site mail filterer too, and our stats show that 100% of incoming mail is spam. Now we just block port 25, and we're so effective that the companies tell us they don't need our services after the first week.

Re:

[transami]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

There is a simple solution to email spam

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

Re:

[Cairnarvon]

A couple of extra bucks times a few hundred thousand. Most domain squatters don't squat just one domain.
Of course, it doesn't matter much as long as the five-day grace period makes domain kiting possible.

Re:

[cheater512]

A 7% increase is nothing for spammers.

Re:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[mpe]

A 7% increase is nothing for spammers.

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

Re:

[Nullav]

Then again, domains are a per year cost. They're the least expensive part of running a website. (They can even be skipped entirely in some cases, thanks to search engines. But let's think of the typosquatters for a moment...)
Rather than causing squatters to simply close shop (Would you? It's almost sweatless revenue as it is.) because they're making less off of ads, I'd expect them to pay more attention to what domains are actually worth holding on to.

Re:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[Cairnarvon]

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:

[KillerCow]

I don't know... a couple of extra bucks multiplied over a million squatted domains might do something. Charging what a domain is worth is probably the only way to stop squatting.

Re:

[i.of.the.storm]

The thing is, squatters rely on the money back thing so that they never actually pay for a domain, they just return it after three days and then instantly renew it again. I learned about this when the domain of my school's robotics club got squatted by some assholes because the guy who owned the domains had gone to college and wouldn't respond to my emails, and I was trying to catch them on the small gap when they didn't own the domain, but eventually one of the squatters gave up on the .net domain (we had

Re:

[Kozz]

HAHAHAHAHA... oh, you were serious??

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

Re:

[_KiTA_]

Well, spammers/squatters generally need a lot of domain names to build the fake referencing networks to game Google, so the costs would add up. A few bucks here, a few bucks there, soon, you are talking about real money.


Yes, but the way I understand it, they use a trick that lets them register domain names for a few days at a time for essentially nothing to get most of their domain names.

And?

[TubeSteak]

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

Re:And?

[Mr. Slippery]

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]

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

Oh wait.

Re:

[MrCawfee]

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:

[rtb61]

Well then perhaps the next time, they can auction off the rights to the root domains, the highest bidder gets it and charges the maximum the market can pay. The highest bidder can also look for other ways to maximise their returns, weekly rentals on the most popular domains, immediate foreclosure on domain names if the fee isn't paid on time and the auctioning of those domain name.

The guaranteed quickest way of getting other countries to create their own root servers and only mirror those entries from oth

Re:And?

[MrNaz]

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

Re:And?

[mlts]

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:

[segoy]

Guy with a 1M+ UID comes up with this to say? Where's my +3 [Insightful and 1M+ uid] modifier?

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

Re:

[Martin Blank]

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]

"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]

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]

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

Re:And?

[garett_spencley]

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]

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.

Re:

[Dan541]

None of my domains/sites are for profit I don't even place ads on them.

Well, in Australia

[Psychotria]

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

Re:

[CastrTroy]

I think last time I updated my .ca address it was $20 a year. Not that expensive. $100 a year seems a little prohibitive. Especially if it's just for personal use.

Re:

[neonmonk]

.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.

Re:

[Dahamma]

Yeah, but to give the majority of /. users context... was that when AU$ was 0.75 US$ or the currently awful (for me anyway! ;) 0.92 US$...

Re:

[Psychotria]

You're right. I should have checked some more. My registrar _last time_ I updated my domain names was $180 for two years (so $90/year). I just checked their website and it's now $80 for two years. The price seems to have come down, probably because of increased competition. I apologise for not checking that first.

Re:

[Archon-X]

Which australia do you live in?

Prices start at $35AUD.

Re:

[kimba]

The wholesale price for a .com.au domain is $AU22.55/2yrs, i.e. $AU11.27/yr or $US10.37/yr. If you are paying over $100, that's you're own business.

Mate, where do you register your domains!?

[daBass]

http://cheapdomains.com.au/ [cheapdomains.com.au] does $38 for 2 years. I have mine there and they are perfectly legit, no hidden costs. Just register, enter your name servers (I use http://everydns.net/ [everydns.net] and you are good to go.

Inflation

[copponex]

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]

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:

[zentigger]

There are plenty of other TLDs that would be happy to have your money. You could always register a .tw domain for $40/year or a .cn for only $20. I think you can have a .ki domain for a measly $5,000 per anum. It just so happens that Verisign has the one you want--the glorious .com. That's a bit like whining about Intel having a monopoly on the Pentium processor or Mattel having a monopoly on the Barbie Doll.

Maybe you should go back to playing with your Barbies and let the grownups talk.

Re:And?

[Brian Gordon]

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

Re:

[onefriedrice]

I wish domain name prices were much higher. Currently they're ridiculously low, and it only invites squatters. Most legit companies will only have a handful of domain names anyway.

Re:

[Nullav]

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?)

Re:

[Scaba]

And that's the beauty of a monopoly - you don't have to worry about losing customers.

Re:

[Brian Gordon]

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

Re:

[CastrTroy]

What customers?

Can't say I mind...

[pushing-robot]

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]

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

Re:

[Brian Gordon]

...which should use different domains. Dot com is for commercial websites. It ticks me off to no end when websites name themseves .com when they have no off-internet existence whatsoever. Use .net if you can't stay away from making up a lame website name to be all legitimate like a business, or if you're a one-man development group (cough Flash developing houses). Use .name for personal sites. Use .info if you're just looking for a cheap DNS entry like I am.

Re:Can't say I mind...

[garett_spencley]

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]

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:

[VirusEqualsVeryYes]

Actually, selling absolutely nothing qualifies as commercial enough for a .com domain. .com, .org, and .net domains have no restrictions anymore.

The point the GP was making is that .com is seen as the primary domain suffix by most people. Given a domain without its suffix, people are far more likely to try the .com version first. Thus, despite the puritan demands that .com be reserved for commercial use, nearly every owner of a website tries for a .com domain -- even if for just a redirect, like slashdot.co

Re:

[Brian Gordon]

I don't mind that.. I'm impressed by .org or .net websites that refuse to register the .com.. it's always taken by some squatter but when I get the squatter page I'm not annoyed, I think "those guys are hardcore"

Re:

[Epistax]

Are you NUTS? People would type "my-indie-band" and hit SEARCH. Or maybe "I'm feeling lucky". In either case, you'll be the squatter. The situation you describe is SO 2005.

Re:

[glwtta]

Actually the laity is much more likely to type "myspace.com"

But, yeah, in the age of usable search engines, very few people are likely to try to guess the domain name to find something.

Re:

[ceoyoyo]

"It ticks me off to no end when websites name themseves .com when they have no off-internet existence whatsoever."

So eBay should give up eBay.com?

Re:

[Brian Gordon]

Well they're actually a commercial site..

Re:

[techno-vampire]

Exactly, and that's the main reason my vanity domain is .us not .com like all those twitiots out there. Granted, the .com version of my name was already in use (by a graphics design company, I think) but even if it weren't, I'd not have taken it because it's not appropriate.

Re:

[Dan541]

Are you suggesting that Commerce should not be allowed to be online only?
Ever heard the term E-commerce? .com is an unrestricted domain there are no rules for what it should be used for not one of my websites has an off net existence, Why should they?

~Dan

Re:

[Brian Gordon]

Holy crap you're retarded, obviously e commerce sites have warehouses and call centers and at least tax records filed somewhere, they're not just a hundredth of a virtual server and a single envelope in one guy's mailbox every month. If your e commerce site is about that big then yes just stick with .net.

Re:

[Dan541]

Ok no need to have your PMS.

Going by your opinion name me a SINGLE website that has only virtual existance.

I fail to see why my blog shouldent be .com

Re:

[Brian Gordon]

And there should be absolutely no rules what-so-EVER about owning trademarked domains. I mean, there should be rules, like that you can't own a thousand domain names, but connecting it to real-world American trademark law is just retarded. If I'm in mexico and google hasn't translated to spanish yet because it's the 90s, I should be able to register google.mx and offer a spanish-language google results translator or something.. I'd love to see TLDs being created for web communities and someone putting up go

Re:

[stoborrobots]

Sounds like Brad Templeton's How to fix DNS [templetons.com] idea. The idea has been around for a long time; other than economic blockading from the current financial stakeholders, I don't know why is hasn't had more consideration...

The rest of the essays in that collection are at http://www.templetons.com/brad/dns/ [templetons.com]

Re:

[CastrTroy]

If you can't manage to afford $25 a year for your website, you could just go with yourband.myspace.com, or something along those lines. $25 is pretty minimal. It's about the same as a couple packs of guitar strings.

Re:

[Scaba]

You forgot about the initial $100 + $25/year. And why should legitimate users of domains be punished for the bad behavior of squatters? Should gas be $100 fill-up fee + $25 per gallon because some people who drive are criminals?

Re:

[CastrTroy]

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]

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]

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:

[AnonymousCactus]

The problem is that there is a single list that someone has to manage and that someone has to get paid for it.

Competition may be at work here, but not in the way you want. The competition is apparently in bidding for the contract. But then, that is only competition if ICANN makes the bidding competitive.

Re:The USA: Land of Competition

[the_womble]

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]

That'll be what, 1 Euro by then?

Re:

[TheSHAD0W]

Or devaluation... :-P

Value of the once almighty dollar.

[lancejjj]

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.

Re:

[ceoyoyo]

I calculate it to be in the 13% price drop neighborhood.... I wonder if my registrar will pass on the savings to me? I suspect not.

Prices need to go up much further

[Salgat]

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.

Re:

[timmarhy]

the 1990's called they want their dot com boom idea's back.

Re:

[Loconut1389]

apparently you don't run a bunch of non-profit sites on your own dime or with a limited budget. Thanks for your support.

I dont understand

[JimboFBX]

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!

Re:

[carpe.cervisiam]

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!

Wow. I want to live in your world. The magical land where an inflation rate of 8% translates into a 5% increase in the price of goods and services.

Re:

[Jarjarthejedi]

Bad Math Proves A Point!

(Kudos to anyone who gets the reference)

Re:

[eclectro]

Wow. I want to live in your world. The magical land where an inflation rate of 8% translates into a 5% increase in the price of goods and services.

Also in his world, that Conner 120 MB hard drive that cost $150 in 1993, would cost $215 now.

How soon people forget...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that domains used to cost $140 a year. We only DREAMED of $10 domains back in 1999.

Re:How soon people forget...

[GeorgeMcBay]

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.

How much is a domain worth?

[fermion]

Honestly, domains are dirt cheap, and $9 a domain is a far cry from $50 a year that we paid 15 years ago, but certainly more than when they could theoretically be had for free. Of course a cautions business will gather up every conceivable domain in every conceivable TLD. This means that where where one might buy a domain or two for $100 every two years, now even a small business might buy tens times that may, at a cost of perhaps a few hundred dollars per year. Of course, in the scheme of rolling out a d

Re:

[eh2o]

Verisign does not "own" the domains -- they provide a service, not a product. The worth of a domain itself is irrelevant. The only question is, how much does it cost to operate the TLD servers and still make a reasonable profit margin (reasonable meaning that the employees of said operation would be sufficiently compensated to keep the operation running smoothly). I'd guess that in bulk, the cost is on the order of a few cents per domain.

Obsolete

[racyrefinedraj]

Why do we have TLDs anymore, anyway? Why can't I just register http://yourname/ [yourname] ? Since their original intent is both broken (not all .coms are commercial etc) and obsolete (people just google for things anyway), why don't we just say that a domain is a string of alphanumeric characters terminated by a /

The contract does not end in 2012

[karl.auerbach]

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.

Re:

[freedom_india]

Have you investigated the possibility that some ICANN execs may "suddenly" be "recruited" by Verisign at$1.2 million a year?
ICANN should be investigates by the FBI for those reasons.
Secondly ICANN should be forced to sign agreements with its execs that they will NOT ever join any company owned even partially by verisign or its current execs for next 12 years.

If $9 is "The Max"...

[prostoalex]

...you might have a low FICO score.

Speaking of inflation...

[OakDragon]

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

Read the Contract

[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]

By "reasonable" you mean "expected from monopoly"

[whorfin]

They're a friggin monopoly. give them a "maximum allowable increase", they have zero incentive to not 'achieve'. Every resller markets themselves and then comes home to poppa, the ecosystem is theirs.

(sigh)

Duh

[EdIII]

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

That is what you get when you agree to an exclusive contract. Normally, the company asking for the exclusive gives good deals to obtain it. Exclusive is almost never a good option to the company giving it, and there needs to be some pretty good incentives to do so. Really Good. Like AT&T giving a portion of the iPhone sales to Apple good.

However, it seems to never work out that way with governments, or governmental agenci