
Registrars raise alarm over proposal for big .com fee hikes - Deinos
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/registrars-raise-alarm-over-proposal-for-big-com-fee-hikes/
======
kaslai
Here are some quick numbers:

At the end of 2019, Verisign had 158.8 million domains registered. At a price
of $7.85/year, that's about $1.247 billion in expected revenue for 2020.

If we assume that the number of domains remains static forever, this change
means that after the next price hike of 7%, they will see an additional $87.26
million of annual revenue.

By the end of the decade, given the same assumptions above, they will see an
additional annual revenue of $895.28 million _on top of_ their existing $1.247
billion.

All that extra money without providing any additional value to the customer.
I'm sure many a celebration was had when they got the go-ahead to raise prices
like this.

~~~
ChrisLomont
To be fair, due to inflation, prices need to rise each year to continue the
same real revenue.

And your assumption that no new services will be added is likely untrue. Over
the past decade all registrars have had to add significant security measures
to combat rising domain theft scams among other features added.

Granted, 7% is high, but expecting prices to stay fixed for for the same goods
goods is not reasonable.

~~~
ampdepolymerase
Technology is improving and compute and storage gets cheaper every year.
Inflation is just making excuses.

~~~
ChrisLomont
Parts are. Parts are pretty stagnant, and parts increase.

Security costs are increasing, for example, as are wages for tech people to
run the stack.

------
stevenicr
I've been moving domains to uniregistry to get away from godaddy's constant
price increases.

In the middle of transferring another 60 domains over I get a notice that
goaddady is taking over uniregistry.

then later that day I see these stories about icann raising the prices even
more.

maybe the article about this handshake un-censor-able domains thing will
provide some good news for this space. (
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22310604](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22310604)

What is the most uncensored registrar for .coms now? I refuse to let the names
I've been working on be taken over by godaddy.

~~~
exhilaration
Namecheap and Gandi.net get a lot of love from HN.

~~~
larrik
I don't think Gandi.net is still loved by HN

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22001822](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22001822)

~~~
jtl999
That was an issue with their hosting service, and didn't affect domains. As
for myself personally I keep my own backups of my own externally hosted
content but I don't disagree that this issue was a big doozy for Gandi.

------
lkesteloot
I feel like .com should be much more expensive than it is. Too many people
squatting. I have friends who have dozens of .com, and not even "just in
case", they're just collecting them because they like the sound of them. Then
when you have a real idea all the good ones are taken, most unused.

The .com TLD is supposed to be for commercial use, so for a real company it
shouldn't be a big deal to pay $50 or $100 per year or more, and it would free
up good domains to be actually used.

~~~
ozmodiar
I have my own name registered, which I use for email. It would be a pain to
give it up, and nobody else wants it anyway. I don't see why I should have to
deal with a price increase. If a company can deal with these increases
couldn't you also argue that buying from a squatter is not an issue? This has
the advantage of pricing the domains based on demand.

You could argue that you don't want to reward squatting, but either way you're
going to have to pay off some entity I don't think entirely deserves it.

~~~
plopz
How do you know nobody else wants it? Someone has my real name registered, it
would be nice to have, but I've never tried contacting them about it.

------
lostapathy
I absolutely do not think ICANN, or the registries, "need" any more money, and
I don't want them to have it.

At the same time, one could make a very strong case that .com domains should
cost more to help combat squatting and speculation. They are a limited
resource and too many people (me included) sit on domains "just in case I want
to develop the idea" and that has a lot of other unintended consequences we
don't want.

~~~
lozaning
Someone already having bought the domain you want and now you having to pay
market price for it is not reason enough to force me to pay additional money
to verisign every time I reg or renew a domain.

Instead of me and every other .com domain owner having to pay the verisign
availability tax that only potentially benefits you, why don't you just pay
fair market price to whoever owns the domain you want.

If I was a verisign stock holder I'd be all about your plan.

~~~
jjeaff
I'm on the fence. But I would add that the low renewal price of .com domains
makes the prices asked for many domains unrealistic. Because they see an
opportunity to just sit on the domain and gamble that it might become more
valuable.

People want a thousand dollars for long, not great domains. If the renewal was
higher, I think "market price" would be a little closer to market.

Perhaps a higher initial fee and then renewals would remain the same. Then at
least it would discourage future squatting without putting a burden on small
time users.

~~~
lozaning
Let's make every new .com cost 1 million dollars to register, so prohibitivly
expensive that we can be sure that CocaCola can get newcokeflavor.com whenever
they decide they want to buy it, and TacoBell can get any iteration of
[dorritosflavor]tacos.com whenever they need it. Still onboard?

Or, what if instead of all of us paying verisign more money for zero
additional value, Coke just pays a million to whoever happens to own
newcoke.com if they decide they want that domain?

------
rectang
> _But Verisign itself doesn 't have competitors; if you want to register a
> .com address, you have to do business with Verisign._

Sounds like Verisign is a rent-seeking monopoly.

------
isoprophlex
In my mind, the registration process for TLDs shouldn't cost more than a
couple of cents right? Maybe a dollar at most?

This sounds like a purely artificial pricing process to me... But I'm happy to
have my opinion changed on this topic.

~~~
jjeaff
The incremental cost for companies is probably small. Although, it would
depend on what percentage of domains registered require customer support or
other manual intervention. If a customer support request costs the company $20
and 1 in 20 registrations request support, then that's a dollar extra per
registration right there.

And there are still large fixed costs. You need security, rock solid
infrastructure, outgoing email infra, executives, attorneys, offices,
janitorial staff, and all the other stuff that goes along with running a
business.

------
llovan
ICANN seems to be a corrupt organization.

------
harikb
> ... ICANN and Verisign's oversight of the .com domain is itself overseen by
> the US Department of Commerce. Indeed, ICANN argues that it is merely
> complying with the wishes of the Department of Commerce, which authorized
> ICANN to raise the price caps by 7 percent annually back in 2018.

Finally, it will all turn out to be some $2B profit earned somewhere from
having ordered the right Prime Rib dinner at Mar-a-lago. Unless HN enmass
makes the visit there, this will go over just like the .org change

------
twhb
These comments are either irrational or full of domain squatters and
registrars.

This price increase costs a person who own a single domain $3.22 per year.
That's conservatively adjusted for inflation, in 2020 dollars, and after 10
years not while it's still increasing. At minimum wage, this price increase is
costing you an extra 3.4 to 6.1 _seconds_ per work day, depending on the
state.

In other words, if you own a single domain, this increase does not affect you.

It does affect you, though, if you own thousands of domains that you aren't
using. The word for that is "domain squatter".

It also affects you if you're a registrar and you're aware that most domains
are held by squatters, therefore that most of your revenue comes from
squatters.

This price increase doesn't affect me or other legitimate domain holders, has
already made my trigger-happy friends tell me they're going to review their
domains and let go of the ones they probably won't use, and may even make some
types of domain squatting unprofitable. This price increase is good for the
internet.

~~~
kingludite
well put, I would even go as far as estimating domain value and matching the
squatters prices. Or put differently, lets make real-estate on domain-street
as expensive as it should be. Something like: 2 letter domains 100 000, 3
letter ones 50 000 per year. 500 euro per year is nothing if you are serious
about your business. Such high prices will force a market in domain names to
replace this idiocy where any dumb name is owned by whoever got there first
and buying it starts at 20 k and every good name is either a shit or a spam
page. Think of the children! (haha)

I aquire that insight from some EVE online economist who argued fees should be
high enough to make exploiting the [ingame] property a requirement. (and that
this logics should apply to other non-gaming things like land tax) If a game
doesn't work like that it just gets boring with few players owning everything
while not doing jack shit with it. You get "ghost" towns like London.

A discount for purchasing multiple domains with the same name under different
TLD's also seems reasonable. A German should be able to get .de and .com as a
package and .fr should be cheap.

With the new found fortune squatters could get a refund for everything they
let go of.

~~~
donmcronald
I know someone who has a small business that registered a 3 letter ccTLD 20
years ago and they wouldn't be able to justify a one time fee of $50k let
alone $50k / year for their domain.

Domains are basically property, so why not start charging people fair market
value for the physical property they own that's appreciated significantly over
the last several decades?

And if you're talking about only doing it for new domains, all that does is
massively increase the value of good grandfathered domains, so it's even
better for the squatters.

~~~
kingludite
It is property and it is for commercial purposes. 50 k is just a wild guess.
It also doesn't have to jump there in a day.

In my cities shopping street an increasingly large number of stores became
investment vehicles for people who just live there. Shopping there just
becomes... well... bullshit.

The 3 letter COM domain street should be entirely populated by serious
business imho

Your buddy can sell it or he can get a 20 year refund. Depending on the
character combination he might be sitting on 150 k or it might be worth
millions.

Pumping up the fee by that much would probably hurt the value a lot which is a
good thing.

People need to start businesses that need names that customers can remember.
We shouldn't limit the real economy for people who feel entitled to something
for nothing.

~~~
donmcronald
Lol. The person I know has been using it for their owner operated small
business for 20 years. $50k USD per year is an extra employee. Small
businesses are serious business for the people who put their lives into them.
The idea that only huge corporations are real business is crazy.

You’re talking about seizing people’s property and selling it off to the
highest bidder. Who gets that money? And, like I said, it’s a ccTLD (.ca). A 3
letter .ca is worth about $5k USD.

And based on your other comments it sounds like you think people in developing
countries should use the ccTLD for their country and leave the popular TLDs
for the big businesses. No thanks. Your suggestion is way worse than dealing
with domain squatters.

------
pbhjpbhj
Do they need the money?

It's always struck me it should be even cheaper than it is.

Perhaps cc.tld registries should be able to register any non-cc domain. Then
registrars could shop for the best service.

~~~
bitxbitxbitcoin
I witnessed the last ICANN Meeting... They definitely don't need the money.

~~~
kome
story time.

------
keenmaster
Proposal: Why don't we make domain names more like names on the App Store?
Here's how it would work.

If you go to x.com, you'll visit the actual x.com, which literally just shows
an x. However, you'll see a suggestion for the top companies that are
"secondarily registered" (for free) to that domain, in order of popularity and
some other metrics. You can make one of those secondary x.com's the default,
so that when you visit x.com, you visit their alternative website instead.

There are some issues to sort out with that system, such as whether secondary
registration (or at least the auto-suggest) should be allowed for the likes of
Facebook and other established, popular, trademarked brands. Another question
would be that, if x.com is parked by a squatter, should the more visited
x.com's be able to bid for your domain?

Here's how bidding would work. Only established companies with a name that
corresponds to the domain name would be able to bid. Bidding would only be
open for a pre-specified time frame. The domain name owner would be free to
notify everyone with an established company that goes by that name to get in
on the bidding action. Users would be able to flag websites operated by
dead/zombie companies, and an independent committee would convene (digitally)
to vote on whether bidding should be re-opened.

Naming is actually an issue with startups. We should reduce friction as much
as possible for entrepreneurs because it's already hard to start a company as
it is. It would be great if you can just pick the best name that isn't taken
by a major brand and move on to more important matters. Down the line, you can
give customers a small reward for defaulting your version of the domain.

~~~
kingludite
I like the automated ranking. The issue you see with popular websites could be
fixed by asking for a panel to review your website against a fee. Reviewing
who should own google.com would cost 5 euro, other more complex reviews would
be more expensive. The conclusion could also be that there should be an index
page listing all of the tools on [say] video-converter.com which in turn could
be claimed by a website that reviews video converters. Any converter company
can request that website to be reviewed (for a large fee) afterwhich it may
revert back to a flat list type of index that also lists the review website.
The review should be subject to specific rules and regulations and aim to
serve the end user.

Now if only I could figure out who reviews the reviewers...

~~~
keenmaster
I could see the index idea working, but there's one issue to resolve: traffic
hacking.

What if I create a startup called X, and successfully petition to convert
x.com to an index. I'll be on the index, and if I get big enough, I'll be able
to win any bid to become the "primary" domain owner rather than a secondary
registrant. However, a VC firm that didn't invest in my startup can realize
that I'm gaining traction. What they could do is fund another "X" startup that
does the same thing and gets listed on the same index.

Their version of "X" could steal my thunder, and they can use the resulting
profits to justify their investment in the highest bid for x.com. Under the
system that I described, they can still bid for the domain, they just wouldn't
be able to blatantly hack attention by listing their website next to mine in
the index. I would be the very obvious first name in a small window showing
the top secondary x.com's by traffic. Almost everyone would click the first
one, and then default my website if they like it. Of course, they can expand
the modal window into a de-facto index, but that would be if they really want
to see everyone beyond the top 3 x.coms.

~~~
kingludite
A review by humanoids would consider historic context. End of the day the end
user should benefit. Killing off your thunder isn't good for anyone, until it
is.

~~~
keenmaster
That makes sense. I was referring to the most egregious cases of traffic
hacking, where a startup’s value is entirely derived from stealing a namesake
competitor’s startup.

The scenario I’d try to avoid is this: a world where, even if you create a
startup with a reasonably unique name, you can nonetheless 100% count on
someone trying to steal your thunder once your idea is validated. If they
succeed, and they win when bidding opens, then you and your investors will get
a haircut for losing your brand. You might never fully recover, or it could be
a fatal blow.

I must admit, I can’t say that’s an unmitigated bad outcome. In the end, your
investors didn’t help increase the bid when they had the chance, which means
they value your potential less than that of the other X. I could see the whole
system resulting in a market for domain bidding loans, and the terms of the
loan would be more favorable (low rate, long maturity) the more mature your
company is and the more credible the vision.

At least a ton more names would be available, so the potential competitor
would be more likely to pick another name to begin with. Savage competition
would only appear on obvious names like X. I would still be concerned about
large companies trying to squash startups and make life as hard as possible
for them, but I’m sure there’s a way around that. The rules governing the
system would have to effectively outlaw such actions, as adjudicated and
penalized by an independent committee. The system would have to be as fair as
possible to startups, and perhaps even biased towards them, so that society
may reap the positive externalities of competition.

A hybrid between my idea and yours would only force the index schema on the
most extremely simple domain names. Most combinations of two words (not a
common phrase) and most “non-words” that _do not_ correspond to a valuable
company would be really easy for a startup to grab. They’d be able to force
bidding to open immediately, skipping the index stage. The domain owner would
have some amount of time to notify pre-existing businesses with the same name,
if they exist, so that they have a chance to bid.

Example: let’s say kentmobile.com is parked and you are a UK-based 5G startup.
For whatever reason, you want to be named after the UK province of Kent. The
only other business actually named Kent Mobile is a seedy mobile repair shop
in the province. You can force bidding to open, and only you and that seedy
store will be able to bid. Your business has much more potential, so you will
definitely win the bid without paying an enormous sum to the domain owner.
Without such a system, the domain owner can neglect to even list their domain
for sale, intentionally preempt competition (ex: if Facebook parks some of the
best potential social network names), irrationally strike down offers, or ask
for an unreasonably high sum.

~~~
kingludite
I had 2 thoughts: 1) I remembered how much everyone hated web directories (or
did we?) and how annoying it is to have to click though to get to a page. 2)
The other thought was that we've been here before. The solution back then was
to give people second names.

I would still bring in the review panel for that bidding war for an existing
businesses website. The 5G company should probably outbid the previous owner
by some proportional amount.

I find internet navigation [by name] to be a fascinating puzzle since I don't
really like any of the ideas. I'm going to have to think about it for a few
more years.

~~~
keenmaster
It's definitely a tough problem to get right, but the status quo sucks so much
that the only way is up.

I think one feature of the system that would mitigate any issues with indices
or bidding is the ability for users to "default" a website to a particular
domain name. To use another example than x.com - let's say GrubHub didn't
exist, and it was being founded today, but GrubHub.com is parked. Instead of
using a sub-optimal name or paying tons of money for a domain before they even
have revenue, they could go ahead and launch GrubHub.com as a "secondary
domain." Users of their iOS/Android app would be told "hey, to get your $10
signup bonus, tap on this link and press 'default as grubhub.com on all
devices.'" The users would gladly oblige, because they'd rather have
grubhub.com point to an actual service rather than some rent-seeker's landing
page. That's especially if there's free money involved. Once GrubHub gets
momentum, they will be well-positioned to win the eventual bid, which won't
have many bidders. There aren't many companies named GrubHub out there. Again,
if they anticipate very limited/no competition in an auction, they can just
force the bid to happen before formally launching and maybe pay a few hundred
dollars for grubhub.com.

------
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
I don’t get domains. There seems to be plenty of competition between them,
especially with the introduction of gtlds. So why isn’t there downward price
pressure on domains? Why do I pay someone _at least_ $10 a year for a tiny few
bytes of data?

How can we break this? Should we do a crowdfunded gtld for a not-for-profit
permanent gtld?

~~~
donmcronald
The new gTLDs have a pricing problem IMO. All of them are more expensive than
.com, which is the "best" domain, so they look overpriced.

Plus, the premium registrations are incredibly poorly thought out. For
example, you can buy wifi.cloud for $55,000 up front plus $1,100 per year or
you can go to afternic where the minimum offer on wificloud.com is $2000.
Which would you rather own (neither IMO, but...)?

I think the new gTLDs would have done better if they'd have positioned
themselves as a small business alternative to domain squatters. A small
business would be excited to have pc.tech for their website, but not for
$10k/year. IMO, you'd be better off buying a good, generic .com off afternic
for $100k at that point because you'd be breaking even in about 15 years
(assuming 6% interest) plus it has some resale value if you don't make it 15
years.

------
guru4consulting
Instead of relying on a single authority for a tld, why not make the ownership
distributed and let multiple organizations compete among themselves? May be
they could share data over blockchain or a similar database. This is still
centralized control but at least distributed to few organizations instead of
just one monopoly. Or even better, same policy of distributed control could be
applied to ICANN. I don't understand the intricacies of their work, but I hope
they get some serious competition.

