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?

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

Re:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

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?

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:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

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?

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.

And?

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

Re:And?

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?

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

Oh wait.

Re:And?

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

Inflation

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?

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?

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

Re:And?

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?

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

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

Re:And?

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

Can't say I mind...

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...

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.

inflation

That'll be what, 1 Euro by then?

Value of the once almighty dollar.

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.

The contract does not end in 2012

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...

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

Read the Contract

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:The USA: Land of Competition

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:How soon people forget...

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.