Deal Reached on .com Domain Price Hikes

[NamingJournal.com]

NEW YORK - The board of the Internet's main oversight agency has approved a deal under which VeriSign Inc. must meet some conditions in order to raise fees for ".com" domain names.

VeriSign, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., operates the servers that constitute the Internet's core address book for ".com" Web sites, making sure that people find Web sites. The company sells ".com" addresses for $6 each to registrars who then sell them to the public.

Under the deal approved Tuesday by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, VeriSign is allowed to raise its annual fee for domain names, which registrars could then pass along to customers.

The deal limits VeriSign's annual price increases to 7 percent in four of the next six years. In two of the years, VeriSign could raise fees by the same percentage only in response to a security threat or to comply with an ICANN mandate.

The ICANN board was divided on the issue, voting 9 to 5 for approval, with one abstention. Statements by the board members were not immediately available.

The deal has faced opposition from some registrars, who have complained about the price increases and the fact that like previous contracts, it gives VeriSign the first right to renew the contract with ICANN when it expires in 2012.

"We are disappointed that after hearing from so many Internet stakeholders about why this proposal is anticompetitive, the ICANN board still approved a known bad deal," said Champ Mitchell, chief executive of Network Solutions Inc., a registrar that was sold off by VeriSign in 2003.

The deal needs final approval by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Mitchell urged the government to reject it.

VeriSign said it was "pleased" with ICANN's approval, and noted that it was similar to a deal reached last year over ".net" domain names, which the company also administers.

On the Nasdaq Stock Market, shares of VeriSign rose 15 cents, to close at $23.81.

By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer
Wed Mar 1, 5:32 PM ET


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[Silhouette]

bad news!!... price hike will be passed on to the end users...
thousands and thousands of .com registered and dropped each day.... dont they ever have enough??

 

[NamingJournal.com]

bad news!!... price hike will be passed on to the end users...
thousands and thousands of .com registered and dropped each day.... dont they ever have enough??

It is all about CONTROL, CONTROL, CONTROL. By incresing the fees, they are indirectly deciding who can or cannot register a domain name. They don't give a "F" about others

 

[Kate]

Good news for VRSN shareholders.

 

[Aaron D.]

I think the company has too much control as it is. I think the rules defining how and when domain names are purchased should be rewritten to make it less of a monopoly.

 

[Silhouette]

It is all about CONTROL, CONTROL, CONTROL. By incresing the fees, they are indirectly deciding who can or cannot register a domain name. They don't give a "F" about others

by chance, did you read about, the concrete figure that the company will charge the registrars per .com in the near future??

Good news for VRSN shareholders.

NASDAQ counter?? ... I dont own any...

 

[Zeeble]

I could understand the current price, however I cannot understand any price hikes.

Marginal Cost for Verisign per registration goes down as quanitity increases, whereas here they are going to increase price in the future even though there is considerable growth.

 

[sm]

i hope google buys off verisign and starts offering domains for $1 that'll be the end of this issue once and for all. google should also provide free web hosting for all these domains ... in any case they store the cache of the whole web ... big deal for them :lol: and anyway half the sites out there use adsense (and the other half uses adwords) :yell: ... so it's not a problem for them even from the business standpoint.

 

[NamingJournal.com]

Maybe the U.S government should get involve, since are involve in everything.Why not this?

 

[sm]

aaah no ... maybe the chinese govt could get involved in collaboration with google :lol: just kidding

 

[NamingJournal.com]

good point, laughing............

 

[barefoottech]

Woohoo, Hurray ,Price Rises for .COM
Than the Users of the Other TLD's will not have to keep hearing the same old Mantra ".com is KING"

 

[Simsi]

To go against the grain here, i think its good news, but not enough of a hike. I'd like to see domains up at $200+ to counteract SERPS spam and all the crappy 5 cent Adsense pages that are polluting the Internet.

It will make people think about what they register , put more thought into development and marketing the names plus it will help legitimate business launching brands, improve search engine results, reduce spam, increase decent domain property prices, stem the flow of irrelevant PCC customer click costs, cut PPC fraud, reduce PPC bid prices and save a lot of people here a lot of money and hassle registering totally useless names. Including me :D

The people who would suffer would be the domain parking companies, drop-catchers, ISP's and PPC programs but they will adapt.

Sure i collect domain real-estate. But I'd rather see a better Internet.

 

[sm]

hey some great points..... i couldnt agree more. would be bad for us, but would end up making the internet better and more spam free.

 

[Robert Allen]

At least it is an insentive to renew renew renew my domains like pcwebtalk.com...

 

[JMJ]

To think a price increase will detur spam is crazy since spammers are no longer using their own names anymore they use other peoples names such as mine. My personal email account has been suspended twice in the past two weeks from the datacenter due to domain spoofing in spam emails.

As far as PPC and domain investing is concerned with this deal it only gets worse because Verisign is allowed to datamine and sell the traffic data to those with the bucks.

Also if they get this through the DOC it won't be just .com prices raising and .com won't be the only one to be involved in datamining and CLS. The other operators will follow suit. They are just sitting back waiting. I'm sure as soon as ICANN approved they had their lawyers drafting up revisions to their contract.

 

[Kate]

So we may need a class action now.

 

[NamingJournal.com]

I know they are listening and hope they hear us loud and clear. Maybe, if we continue to voice our concerns, just maybe they may listen. I appreciate all your comments and hope we continue to speak/voice our opinion, after all we are their money bag (domain buyers/sellers/investors).

www.namingjournal.com "serious, but entertaining"

 

[labrocca]

I assume though you can still renew domains at current prices for up to 10 more years...although with 500 domains that can get VERY costly.

 

[sm]

To think a price increase will detur spam is crazy since spammers are no longer using their own names anymore they use other peoples names such as mine. My personal email account has been suspended twice in the past two weeks from the datacenter due to domain spoofing in spam emails.

this was not about email spam .... but adsense spam.

anyway, as far as I am concerned, I would be happy with the dotcom prices remaining unchanged :tu:

 

[robertjr]

To go against the grain here, i think its good news, but not enough of a hike. I'd like to see domains up at $200+ to counteract SERPS spam and all the crappy 5 cent Adsense pages that are polluting the Internet.

It will make people think about what they register , put more thought into development and marketing the names plus it will help legitimate business launching brands, improve search engine results, reduce spam, increase decent domain property prices, stem the flow of irrelevant PCC customer click costs, cut PPC fraud, reduce PPC bid prices and save a lot of people here a lot of money and hassle registering totally useless names. Including me :D

Hmm...

Half the domains in your sig are parked and defrags does not resolve.

As for

crappy 5 cent Adsense pages

, I would rather see that than parking pages. I may just find something I want and less "pop ups" :imho:

 

[JMJ]

Nice catch robert, parked names in a sig is worse than any spam in my book.

 

[Aaron D.]

GoDaddy is encouraging its customers to write their senators to stop the deal.

-- GO DADDY OPPOSES ICANN-VERISIGN AGREEMENT

Yesterday, February 28, ICANN announced that its Board of Directors met and approved the pending deal with VeriSign(R) for the .COM registry. The agreement will let VeriSign raise registration fees by 7% annually in four of the next six years. It will also give VeriSign control of the .COM registry indefinitely, as it extends VeriSign's "presumptive renewal" right when this agreement ends in 2012.

The deal was approved by a majority vote, with nine voting in favor and five voting against. One director abstained. Vinton Cerf, who is the Chairman of ICANN and also now an employee of Google(R), voted in favor of the give-away.

Following the vote, Credit Suisse increased the price target on VeriSign stock. Their analyst describes the .COM registry as VeriSign's highest margin business (before any price increases). He goes on to say that the compounding effect of just the price increases could represent a net present value of $4 to $5 per share for VeriSign, or 1 to 1.25 billion dollars. The price increases will start in 2007.

Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons is voicing strong disapproval of this agreement. "The agreement is a bad deal for our customers and the Internet community as a whole," said Parsons.

"The fact that this deal was approved is a loud signal that major changes are needed at ICANN. If we don't step up and overhaul ICANN, and leave the Internet largely under the control of this incredibly inept organization, this will go a long way in providing the United Nations with the ammunition it needs to start taking control of the Internet -- that must never happen."

From here, before the deal becomes final, the U.S. Department of Commerce will still need to approve it. If you are disappointed with this recent decision, consider writing a letter to your Senator and Congressperson. You can find the email address of your representatives at the following two Websites:

+ For the Senate: www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

+ For the House: www.house.gov/writerep/

For more information about the agreement, please visit Bob Parsons' blog -- Hot Points! -- at http://www.BobParsons.com.

 

[Silhouette]

Hmm...
Half the domains in your sig are parked and ...

:yell: U made my day...

parked names in a sig is ....

I've always wanting to ask, Is that allowed by the parking company??

 

[JMJ]

:yell: U made my day...

I've always wanting to ask, Is that allowed by the parking company??

No it's against most parking providers TOS aswell as unethical because it overinflates traffic numbers. In fact if there's not already there should be a forum rule against it.