ICANN to Study Price Caps on Domain Registrations
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
As part of new TLD process, ICANN commissions study on pricing restrictions for registries.
After receiving a number of comments about lack of pricing limits in new TLD registry agreements, Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has commissioned a study to determine if price caps should be implemented.
A number of domain owners were concerned that the first draft registry agreement for new top level domains did not have price caps, and that existing registry agreements could adopt these same terms through “equal treatment” clauses. In other words, VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) could increase prices on .com domains to $100 a year or charge variable pricing, such as $100,000 for Google to renew Google.com and more money for domainers to renew good domains.
In addition to commissioning a study to evaluate price caps, the second version of ICANN’s new gTLD guidebook includes two provisions related to price increases. First, registries must give six months notice of changes. Second, registries must allow registrants to renew domain names for up to 10 years at a time. The combination of these would protect domain owners to a degree; if a registry decided to drastically increase prices then domain owners could renew for 10 years at current prices. However, 10 years is not eternity and drastic price increases would be harmful to the future of the internet.
Hopefully these two provisions will survive along with additional rules about rates of increases and competitive price bidding for renewal of registry agreements.
My general take is that registries should have light pricing constraints to set new registration prices but should have caps on increasing renewal fees.
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Greedy !!!!!
Great constructive comment.
Hi Andrew,
Seriously, ICANN needs to step up and stop this non-sense “unpredictable” price increase. I can’t renew 2000+ domains for 10 years, still no guarantee that the cost of domains will stay the same.
I let go hundred of domains last year because it’s absolutely nuts, it affect my revenue after renewal.
Well on the bright side, I was able to treasure the remaining one’s and pay more attention of developing it.
IMHO
Emil
Fact: there could never be a justification for charging existing registrants (Google.com or other) substantially higher prices for their domains other than pure, 100% greed and exploitation. It would the most egregious, blatant gouging on par with Madoff. Would simply not be tolerated. Seriously, if anyone at ICANN is so profoundly misguided as to think they could get away with this, it would eradicate any semblance of legitmacy that organization ever gained.
I find this utterly ridiculous. The number of businesses and individuals fully invested in their internet properties is astronomical. Would be like tripling everyone in America’s mortgage just because one thinks they can get away with it. Ridiculous.
Just how much longer does the internet community need to address this? Enough already. ICANN need to go on record that existing tld renewals are going to be in line with historical & predicatable pricing, and that new tld agrements will have NO BEARING on, or connection to, existing gTLD agreements.
All of this is window dressing.
They will say one thing and do what they want anyway.
Icann figures if Verisign can charge what the market can bear, Icann can also.
Icann is accountable to no one.
Their goal is to become the invisible global government.
In 10 years, the world and its economy will be more dependent on the internet even more than today. Then, they can indirectly demand what they want thru their puppets – Verisign.
As I stated elsewhere, Icann makes OPEC look like amateurs.
ICANN is a greedy spineless entity that registries can take advantage of any time.
IF there was competition prices would be going down to $2 or $3 a domain and even more would be sold.
ICANN always follows the money….not the best interests of the Net community.
Lets face it folks, the days where you can just stick your flag in a domain for $7 are numbered. Eventually America ran out of free land too right? I agree, I think its ridiculous, well if not ridiculous, a rather drastic change to the landscape. They want to set off quite a bomb.
I still like to find the silver lining in things. I look at it this way, if I’m lucky enough to own a domain that will get premium priced for some crazy number like $500k, I wouldn’t mind renewing it for 10 years for $7.xx a year and then finding some buyer who will be happy to pay me $250k for the next 10 years, already knowing it is worth $500k a year, and I’ll probably be happy to get $250k for the name assuming I got it for alot less than that.
Tools like estibot won’t be as important anymore since the registry will tell us what the domains are worth for us. Same for 3rd party appraisals. I assume the registry will charge as much as they can.
I’m also thinking that perhaps a whole new world of domain leasing could emerge from this in an attempt to pay our rent. Thats how many people subsidize the mortgate on their $1M real estate investments.
I wonder if we could sell subdomains, or just space on our valuable premium domain names that a regular person will have no ability to ever afford. We’ve got maybe 10 years to figure this out, better start thinking about it now.
Who wouldn’t want to rent commercial space on a domain that has traffic. Its like leasing a spot in a shopping mall with lots of walk-in traffic. Why rent to just 1 person. The more walk-in traffic the mall can provide the higher the rents. Anybody want to start this idea with me?
I would support letting the entities who “get” the new extensions (should it actually ever come to pass) to charge whatever they want for new regs…but set renewals at, say, no more than the US/EU CPI rate.
And of course, no changes to the existing extensions. It’s just wrong to modify (as in increase) the pricing rules once the “game”’s in play.
ICANN doesn’t make more money if registries are able to charge more. For the most part it gets a fixed fee per domain registered…so it would actually do better if prices were lower and more domains registered.
When the registry contract is renewed, a few is agreed upon payable to Icann.
If Icann knows the registry will make more, I’m sure they will negotiate a higher fee.
That fee is separate from the $ 0.20 fee.
@ Domainer – fair point. VeriSign’s dot com fee goes up 6 million to 18 m this year.
my.tv is for sale it states the renewal fee is $1800.00 so there is already tiered pricing out there in the marketplace.if icann does not collect the additional money then it enom collects the .tv additional fee.this had to be part of enom’s proposal/bid for the .tv registry….so there it is tiered pricing in action and
it does not look good for domainers…..
this is where heavy hitters ie castillo brothers,frank schilling and the domain king need to enter the market and correct this action by icann..these heavy hitters have tremendous monthly cash flow….
@ domain guy – note that .tv is a country code, not a typical top level domain. Second, it was actually VeriSign that has the .tv deal and eNom inked a deal with them.
@ domain guy
Where is my.tv link forsale?
Thank you,
Emil
[...] ICANN to Study Price Caps on Domain Registrations After receiving a number of comments about lack of pricing limits in new TLD registry agreements, Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has commissioned a study to determine if price caps should be implemented. A number of domain owners were concerned that the first draft registry agreement for new top level domains did not have price caps, and that existing registry agreements could adopt these same terms through “equal treatment” clauses. In other words, VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) could increase prices on .com domains to $100 a year or charge variable pricing, such as $100,000 for Google to renew Google.com and more money for domainers to renew good domains. In addition to commissioning a study to evaluate price caps, the second version of ICANN’s new gTLD guidebook includes two provisions related to price increases. First, registries must give six months notice of changes. Second, registries must allow registrants to renew domain names for up to 10 years at a time. The combination of these would protect domain owners to a degree; if a registry decided to drastically increase prices then domain owners could renew for 10 years at current prices. However, 10 years is not eternity and drastic price increases would be harmful to the future of the internet. Hopefully these two provisions will survive along with additional rules about rates of increases and competitive price bidding for renewal of registry agreements. My general take is that registries should have light pricing constraints to set new registration prices but should have caps on increasing renewal fees. More… [...]
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