ICA – Internet Commerce Association
The Internet Commerce Association has created a tool for comment submissions, that notifies ICANN of your opposition to upcoming .com price hikes.
Verisign, managers of the .com (and .net) domain space, are planning to raise the base cost of dot .com domains by 7% annually.
According to the email from ICA, the price increases benefit Verisign only, and ICANN’s approval of such an exclusive contract does not benefit public interest.
To use the ICA tool notifying your opposition to ICANN, click here.
Here’s the letter from ICA:
Tell ICANN what you think of their plan to raise the price of .com!
Your .com is going to cost over 30% more unless ICANN listens to the public and changes its mind. We created a tool to help you submit your viewpoint to ICANN. It takes 30 seconds! Use the tool here.
Verisign is the sole-source supplier of .com domain names at the wholesale level, giving them an effective monopoly. When you register or renew a domain name through your registrar, such as GoDaddy or NetworkSolutions, $7.85 of your registration or renewal payment goes to Verisign. The actual cost to Verisign to provide the expensive infrastructure and the management of the registry has been estimated at between $2.50 to $2.90 per domain name per year. Other registries have said they can offer the same services at lower cost. But ICANN does not allow other companies the opportunity to bid to operate the .com registry, for ICANN has given Verisign the perpetual right to operate the .com registry – meaning forever!
As the cost to operate the .com registry drops lower and lower, Verisign’s profits are already rising higher and higher. Verisign already enjoys one of the highest profit margins of any company in the world. A further price increase is not justified. Yet ICANN staff has determined that Verisign should be able to increase prices on .com registrants by 7% per year from the current $7.85 to $10.26 after four years. This will impose hundreds of millions of dollars of added expense on .com registrants – simply to benefit Verisign.
ICANN is supposed to act in the public interest, and be responsive to public comment. This comment period is your opportunity to share your views with ICANN, whether you think the price increases are justified or unjustified.
