Verisign and the Domain Name Price Hike.

Last week I wrote about the sale of exclusive wholesale rights to .com domain names given to one company Verisign (www.verisign.com) by ICANN.

"ICANN's stewardship has succeeded because its focus has been not on politics, but on making the network as efficient as possible. The sometimes fierce debates that break out among techies have been conducted transparently. The result has been an Internet open to innovation and free expression, led mostly by the private sector and relatively free from government interference." ( economist Oct. 6 2005)

The problem with the pending agreement between ICANN and Verisign is that it "allows VeriSign to arbitrarily increase domain fees up to 7% per year. Additionally, the registrars' concern is that VeriSign can implement the price hikes without justification and web hosts and registrars would be forced to pass on the fee increases to individual domain registrants." ( webhosting.info Nov. 30 2005)

Opposition is against the drafting of the agreement between ICANN and Verisign which runs until 2012. The agreement gives Verisign a virtual monopoly of the .com Top Level Domain Name forever. The conditions set up in the agreement, for early termination of the arrangement, are unlikely to ever happen. There is also an option for automatic renewal of the agreement at the end of 2012.

The "World Association of Domain Name Developers, Inc. (WADND) on behalf of its members around the world, alleges that ICANN and Verisign have engaged in antitrust activities, including conspiracy, monopolization, illegal price fixing and monopolizing '.com' and '.net' domain name markets. The suit alleges that the two are on the verge of entering "an unlawful agreement that gives VeriSign a permanent monopoly over the all '.com' and '.net' Internet domain name registrations."( webhosting.info Nov. 30 2005)

The new settlement agreement also doubles the ICANN fees charged to Registrars. Currently Registrars pay 25 cents per domain name to ICANN. The new agreement will make that 50 cents. This again means all Registrars will further increase what they charge all of you for dot com Domain Names. Is there any solution? Write to ICANN: at settlement-comments@icann.org or US Department of Commerce Secretary, Carlos Guterriez: cgutierrez@doc.gov and US NTIA, Assistant Secretary: mgallagher@ntia.doc.gov.

In the meantime when you buy or renew your .com name get it for as long as you can before the prices become too exorbitant.