

Ask HN: Why do we pay for domain names? - ChristianBundy

There are over 100 million domain names registered, which I&#x27;ll assume average out at $15&#x2F;year (being conservative). All said and done, that means $1.5 billion in revenue for the countries and corporations that own TLDs, which were assigned by ICANN.<p>Should DNS be crowdsourced, with the cost of the domain name accurately reflecting the cost of operating the DNS network? Even at $0.01 per domain name per year, we would still have $100,000 to operate the DNS network.<p>Is there something I haven&#x27;t considered, or does the current system need to be replaced?
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catinsocks
Sure have it cost $0.01 and then for your $0.01 you can get your very own
thisismyuniquedomainname4311.com because everyone else got there before you.

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martey
If domain names cost $0.01 a year, wouldn't domain squatting become worse?

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ChristianBundy
I look at it like emails – yes, we could make it so that it costs $0.50 to
send an email, and this _would_ make less people spam... but it isn't an
elegant solution.

I think that domain name squatters should be flagged and the domains should be
removed if they aren't being used appropriately. Furthermore, bulk domain
registration should be banned – I can't think of a simple reason that this
should be allowed.

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argonaut
How is that inelegant? That would be a fantastic solution to email spam!

> I think that domain name squatters should be flagged and the domains should
> be removed if they aren't being used appropriately.

Who gets to flag squatters? How do we define "used appropriately?" Who gets to
decide whether a squatter meets that definition?

A system of flagging is more complicated than you think.

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jeorgun
The main answer seems to be `domain squatting'. Obviously this is a definite
concern, but couldn't it also be solved by having TLD owners instituting some
requirement to the effect of ``if you've owned your domain for over a year but
still haven't used it for anything, we're taking it back''?

Of course, that leads to concerns over what qualifies as `using', but I'd
imagine something could be worked out.

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zellio
Monopoly and regulation. Rather, monopoly is why it costs so damn much.
Regulation is necessary because we need to have one internet, not many.

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t0
Exactly. Most of that $15 goes directly to ICANN and Verisign.
[http://www.hostly.com/hosting-info/much-domain-names-
cost-15...](http://www.hostly.com/hosting-info/much-domain-names-
cost-1523.html)

~~~
gacba
Not quite.

 _ICANN Fees

ICANN charges a fee for each domain name registered. The fee is 20 cents per
domain._

The domain registrars pay additional fees to ICANN, but it's hardly anywhere
near the 90+% you quoted.

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pyvek
Have you looked at Namecoin? [0] [1] Apart from being a cryptocurrency, it
supports a decentralized DNS.

[0] [http://namecoin.info/](http://namecoin.info/)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namecoin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namecoin)

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weddpros
In a sense, domain names are similar to (software) patents. They're considered
private property. Which is, imho, a very bad idea. It's a kind of legal
extortion, just like patent trolls and software patents in general. And unused
domain names ownership hurt entrepreneurship the same way patents hurt it.

