Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]


Groups > comp.misc > #17881

Re: [Link posting] Internet industry freaks out over proposed unlimited price hikes on .org domain names

From Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid>
Newsgroups comp.misc
Subject Re: [Link posting] Internet industry freaks out over proposed unlimited price hikes on .org domain names
Date 2019-04-27 13:55 +1000
Message-ID <gii25rFph67U1@mid.individual.net> (permalink)
References <d60ca04a-b091-d368-e486-64ad7a5fa659@scorecrow.com>

Show all headers | View raw


On 27/04/2019 8:36 am, Bruce Horrocks wrote:
>         
> ####################################################################
> # ATTENTION: This post is a reference to a website.  The poster of #
> # this Usenet article is not the author of the referenced website. #
> ####################################################################
> 
> <URL:https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/04/26/dot_org_price_increases/>
> 
> The text below is a quotation from the URL above:
> 
>> The organization that oversees the domain name system, ICANN, has 
>> proposed an end to price caps on one of the internet's most popular 
>> extensions – .org – and many in the internet industry are unhappy 
>> about it.
>>
>> "Imagine if next year you had to pay 10 times as much to renew your
>> domain name as you paid this year," one seller of domains, Namecheap,
>> has warned in a blog post.[1] It and other registrars have started
>> emailing their customer urging them to oppose the plan – which is out
>> for public comment[2] until this Monday, April 29.
>>
>> Currently, many of the world's biggest internet extensions – .com,
>> .net and .org, among others – are prevented from increasing their
>> prices beyond a certain amount over the course of their contract with
>> ICANN.
>>
>> It means that you can typically get a .com or .org domain for around
>> $10 a year. But a huge expansion of the domain name system that has
>> seen thousands of new extensions added in the past five years – all
>> of which are free to set their own prices – has led to pressure from
>> the "legacy" registries to take off price controls.
>>
>> In its proposed contract change, ICANN has used the addition of all
>> these new top-level domains to argue for removing price caps. "This
>> change will not only allow the .org renewal agreement to better
>> conform with the base registry agreement, but also takes into
>> consideration the maturation of the domain name market and the goal
>> of treating the Registry Operator equitably with registry operators
>> of new gTLDs and other legacy gTLDs utilizing the base registry
>> agreement," the organization explains in its public comment
>> explanation.
>>
>> It is proposing the same change to two other top-level domains: .info
>> and .biz, which are run to by two of the biggest internet registries,
>> Afilias and Neustar respectively.
> ...
> 
> [1] <URL:https://www.namecheap.com/blog/keep-domain-prices-in-check/>
> [2] <URL:https://www.icann.org/public-comments/org-renewal-2019-03-18-en>


One might wonder what a non-profit corporation expects to gain from 
being permitted to increase its fees. The answer, of course, is that the 
increased income can be distributed to the company's officers as salary.

So a non-profit entity has as much motivation to engage in monopolistic 
behaviour as any other, and will do so if given the chance.

The org TLD is perhaps viewed as a testing ground for this, since 
holders of its subdomains are unlikely to have as much clout as would 
holder of .com domains, for example.

ICANN might care to take into account that its entire control of the 
Internet domain name system is based on the root server addresses built 
into operating systems, and those can be changed if the domain name 
system turns into a method of extracting rent from the existing domain 
name holders. All it would take would be agreement between Microsoft, 
Apple, Google (for Android) and a few Linux distributions, and ICANN 
would be out of a job.

The net, org, and com registrars knew what they were getting into. If 
they don't want to operate within the existing pricing constraints, then 
they should pass the job onto someone who does. Wanting to change the 
rules now is like moving into a suburb next to an airport, and then 
complaining about the noise.

Sylvia.

Back to comp.misc | Previous | NextPrevious in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread


Thread

[Link posting] Internet industry freaks out over proposed unlimited price hikes on .org domain names Bruce Horrocks <07.013@scorecrow.com> - 2019-04-26 23:36 +0100
  Re: [Link posting] Internet industry freaks out over proposed unlimited price hikes on .org domain names not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2019-04-27 00:31 +0000
  Re: [Link posting] Internet industry freaks out over proposed unlimited price hikes on .org domain names Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid> - 2019-04-27 13:55 +1000

csiph-web