On October 20th I wrote about GoDaddy and its practice of not including the $.25 ICANN “tax” in its registration prices (see GoDaddy should drop ICANN tax). eNom, which currently has almost 6 million domains registered by it and its resellers, has announced it will begin breaking out the fee as well. The difference is that eNom isn’t tacking it on to its existing prices but just breaking it out. For example, instead of listing domains for $8.95 they will now list them for $8.70 plus the $.25 fee.
eNom isn’t doing this for the same purpose as GoDaddy- which is basically trying to advertise lower prices- but instead because this fee might soon increase due to the ICANN/Verisign proposed settlement. eNom is opposed to this settlement (as am I and most of the domain name industry). In a note to eNom resellers, eNom CEO Paul Stahura writes:
eNom is specifically showing this fee to domain purchasers because of recently announced potential contract changes taking place between ICANN and Verisign. ICANN and Verisign have proposed a settlement to their long-standing dispute. The proposed settlement covers multiple subjects that resellers should be aware of. In particular, there are important rule changes in growth rates of fees. According to this proposed settlement, eNom anticipates that fees for domain purchases could possibly increase to $0.50 per domain, plus an additional 7% per year above that. ICANN is seeking feedback on these changes. Comments can be made through November 10th at http://icann.org/announcements/annou ncement-24oct05.htm
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