news Icann Verisign comment period on .com price increase

[Joe Styler]

I wanted to let everyone know who may not have received the email from GoDaddy yesterday about our stance on the price increase and how you can make your voice heard on the comments. The comment period is still open for another day. The proposed price increase would be 7% for 4 years.

Here is the public comment link: https://www.icann.org/public-comments/com-amendment-3-2020-01-03-en

Here is the email we sent out.

ICANN has proposed changes that could significantly impact you and your business.
Let your voice be heard.

As a large domain portfolio holder, ICANN has proposed changes that could significantly impact you and your business. ICANN has proposed an amendment to the .COM registry agreement between itself and Verisign. The proposal would allow Verisign to increase the price of .COM by up to 7% every year for the next 4 years. Since 2018, we have been actively working to raise awareness around this issue, including when GoDaddy testified before Congress in July 2018. Even now, we’re continuing to have discussions, but ultimately, we are one company. Now is the time for ICANN to hear your voice. Please take a few minutes to let ICANN know how allowing this increase will impact you in the years to come. The public comment period is open until February 14th. To be heard, use ICANN’s form to submit your personalized comments. We value your business and vow to keep advocating on your behalf.

 

[equity78]

But nobody likes price increases or happy with fixed prices, the domainer that does not like GoDaddy charging $17.99 is akin to the dentist in KansasCity for example that does not like KCDentist.com for sale at $8,000. The domain investor would say to that dentist you don't like it you can go somewhere else, (register or buy another name).

I had a conversation with a couple people who pondered are people that charge 1,000 to 20,000% above their cost the best messenger to say another company should not raise 7%?

 

[.X.]

But nobody likes price increases or happy with fixed prices, the domainer that does not like GoDaddy charging $17.99 is akin to the dentist in KansasCity for example that does not like KCDentist.com for sale at $8,000. The domain investor would say to that dentist you don't like it you can go somewhere else, (register or buy another name).

I had a conversation with a couple people who pondered are people that charge 1,000 to 20,000% above their cost the best messenger to say another company should not raise 7%?

that is exactly why I don’t have any problem with ICANN moving forward with the 7x7x7 plan they have, how much do i personally value my .com names, more than a 7% rate hike for sure, how much does an average consumer value their .com business name, it’s everything to them, so a 7% increase is highly unlikely to make them feel distressed.

When the price hits peak at a total of 28% increase, I will still feel the same. If it were 50% I would be very concerned, 28% over 4 years time, fair enough, piece of cake

 

[oldtimer]

But nobody likes price increases or happy with fixed prices, the domainer that does not like GoDaddy charging $17.99 is akin to the dentist in KansasCity for example that does not like KCDentist.com for sale at $8,000. The domain investor would say to that dentist you don't like it you can go somewhere else, (register or buy another name).

I had a conversation with a couple people who pondered are people that charge 1,000 to 20,000% above their cost the best messenger to say another company should not raise 7%?

I am not getting this, are you for or against the price increases by Verisign and Godaddy.

Domain sales are sporadic and not guaranteed for All Domainers, but for millions of Captive Customers who have to pay the already unjustified prices that the registry charges the 7% yearly increase amounts to adding an Arbitrary Tax that is imposed on all Registrants by the Registry without providing anything of value beyond the minimum requirements.

IMO

 

[equity78]

that is exactly why I don’t have any problem with ICANN moving forward with the 7x7x7 plan they have, how much do i personally value my .com names, more than a 7% rate hike for sure, how much does an average consumer value their .com business name, it’s everything to them, so a 7% increase is highly unlikely to make them feel distressed.

When the price hits peak at a total of 28% increase, I will still feel the same. If it were 50% I would be very concerned, 28% over 4 years time, fair enough, piece of cake

Fair and balanced take.

 

[oldtimer]

The only thing that could justify the price increases by Verisign and Godaddy is if it was going to cost a lot to upgrade their systems to provide more security and safety for registrants, but with all the new technologies that are available now they should be able to operate a lot more efficiently at a fraction of the cost that might have justified the original prices in the contract many years ago, nevertheless not only that they are not willing to make any major upgrades either at Verisign or GoDaddy, but the registrants are expected to put up with paying additional charges for such things as Privacy when they are free almost everywhere else.

IMO

 

[oldtimer]

@Ategy

I am glad that your comment was accepted and published, you have made some good and logical points that perhaps represents how many people here are thinking about this situation. I also like the compassionate pleas that you have made for preserving democracy around the World by creating an environment that provides equal opportunity for the registrants to be able to express themselves through their domains.

But, the big question here is why should such comments be necessary in the first place.

Why should we have to go through such lengths to try to force ICANN to do the right thing.

Why doesn't ICANN as a Nonprofit organization that has been put in charge of domains also think Logically and be Compassionate about what happens to the Registrants.

Do people have to write a long letter to their doctors to try to convince them to care about them as a patient every time they go for a check up or do they have to write such long letters asking any other entity that is responsible for providing oversight over other matters that affect them as consumers every time they want to use a service or product.

There shouldn't be any need for yours or the other over 9000 comments if ICANN just did their job as it is described in their mission statement.

This is no longer just about the price increase, this is now about evaluating the core function of ICANN and how they are handling this whole domain system when it comes to protecting the public good and interest.

IMO

 

[Keith]

There is no requirement to sign up that is a completely false statement.

It says a name and email are required in order to comment.


Your email address will not be published.Required fields are marked *

Comment

 

[Keith]

Yes as in every other blog in the world, you are not registering for an account. No username and password.

Why would I give an email to a third party site when the discussion was here first?

Also, people are making comments there which are 100% false. I don’t do blog posts or videos to sell my domains. Never have. Whoever Nick is has the wrong guy.

Also, no, I didn’t miss the boat and the few sales I publish here at NP are proof. Another genius commenting with no clue.

 

[equity78]

Hello Sir. In my opinion that comment was not worth to be publised at tldinvestors.com

The comment does not deserve even a place in this thread, not to mention in tldinvestors.com

Which you did not mention a comment.

 

[equity78]

Why would I give an email to a third party site when the discussion was here first?

Also, people are making comments there which are 100% false. I don’t do blog posts or videos to sell my domains. Never have. Whoever Nick is has the wrong guy.

Also, no, I didn’t miss the boat and the few sales I publish here at NP are proof. Another genius commenting with no clue.

Keith I did not ask you to comment, I know who you are, I corrected you had to sign up for an account. I don't know why the other member tagged you.

 

[Sutruk]

Which you did not mention a comment.

I mean this comment:

If godaddy protests it’s because they want to keep low prices for their bottom line. More registrations equal more revenue.

At this stage, .com should be $1,000 a year to hold. It would actually build the internet enduser base and create real content. The days of holding loads of domains hostage should come to an end imo.

It was not worth to be published here:

https://tldinvestors.com/2020/02/at-this-stage-com-should-be-1000-a-year-to-hold.html

But that's just my opinion.

As you already said at the article, that was just a trolling post.

 

[Sutruk]

..

 

[Sutruk]

I respectfully disagree. Keith is not the only person who wants higher regs, or doesn't care. I think $1,000 is way out there, but one commenter mentioned $100.

Others own Verisign and don't have a problem with increases. The biggest misconception I have seen over the years is everyone thinks we are all on the same team. The same agenda and same end goal. Simply not true. Many people own domain names and invest/trade for different reasons.

Yes, I know there's people supporting everything in this World. Even for the strangest things. Anyway, I respect your point of view of course

 

[Keith]

It’s really a supply and demand issue. Anyone when given the chance to own .com vs .whatever will almost always take it.

In any other industry, price reflects demand. Domains should be no different. You get what you pay for.

 

[Ategy]

Sigh .. I sent mine in .. but email bounced. I called ICANN and the person who answered gave me a different email .. if any of you got an error please PM me and I'll give you the email in question.

Seems a bit sketchy .. the email I originally sent it to was the one generated directly at ICANN's comment page!

 

[Name Trader]

I just finished submitting my comments:

https://freespeech.com/2020/02/14/c...ed-amendment-3-to-the-com-registry-agreement/

I hope others will do the same. There are more than 8000 submissions already, but this is the most important contract involving ICANN, registrars and registrants, so the greatest amount of scrutiny is required.

I agree George. I provided my comments without being prompted by this thread, but on George's prompting 8K of comments is such a tiny number of comments against the number of com's registered. ICANN are going to just blow right past all those comments as insignificant. It's a done deal.

 

[Name Trader]

A typical ICANN comment period generates less than 50 comments, so the 8,998 comments to date should be compared with that figure, rather than the total number of domains that have been registered. I'm sure if they asked all domain name registrants, a huge proportion would be against the proposal. But, they never ask all registrants -- they seek to instead sneak these bad proposals through, hoping that nobody pays attention.

But do you think ICANN have agreed with your assumptions, or just dismissed it out of hand? I guess we will only know that, when it's too late and done and dusted Which isn't that the next step? ICANN review these comments by those robber baron domain speculators, and make a final decision. Or are there going to be endless more rounds of indecision, before they implement it.

As I ended in my last post. It's a done deal. IMHO. What ICANN should do is put it to Open Tender. But ICANN can't do that? Haven't they given Verisign an open ended contract. If not. What terms are there for them to terminate the contract, and to Open Tender this .com Registry contract? This question is probably hopeless, because I don't think they have any intention of running this by an Open Tender. Which they should have done when Verisign made their proposal for renewal.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Does anyone know the approximate time period until we will have some statement from ICANN on the input they received and their final decision?

Bob

ps re open tender, @stub, as I understand it that would need to have been done by the US Commerce Dept. at the initial stage. I could be wrong. I think ICANN role is one of review, but they do not view the awarding of the contract as their responsibility.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

@Bob Hawkes .. Staff report due March 6th (Midnight UT)

https://www.icann.org/public-comments/com-amendment-3-2020-01-03-en

Thanks @Ategy . So we will not have to wait long. It will be interesting to see, although I am not hopeful that at this late stage the proposed increases will not come into effect.

Verisign's submission, late in process, surprised me. It just did not feel very professional to me - I had expected from such a respected and successful company a careful legal and business admin argument refuting the points, and making an argument why, despite their very healthy gross profit margin, they need additional revenue to increase security and ... blah blah ..... Instead it seemed really quickly put together and mainly attacked others rather than making their own case. Calling DNW a "speculator's blog" was pretty bad, and they seemed very fixated on Namecheap urging their customers to express comments, whereas almost all of the registrars seemed to do it. It just had a strange tone to it all.

Bob

 

[.X.]

another incredible

We are part of a free market. You can go register your .com anywhere you want if you think they offer better value for your money. Personally I do not think you can get a better value than GoDaddy but you have a choice. If Verisign raises prices... well you cannot go anywhere else. That to me is a big difference. We have competition.

I used to be a totally loyal customer to Godaddy, I still use your domain aftermarket product, I do not dislike Godaddy, I simply don’t like the fees associated with having domain names there. I don’t want to pay for privacy, I don’t want to have to buy a domain club membership for $89 a year so I can get a lower price than $17.99 a year .com registration , auction wise, I don’t want to pay $4.99 for a reserve listing fee. All that money adds up to a big expense when you own over 400 domain names.

Like I said, I do not dislike Godaddy, I like Godaddy, I just hope one day some of the above fees are up for at least a negotiation.

 

[.X.]

We are part of a free market. You can go register your .com anywhere you want if you think they offer better value for your money. Personally I do not think you can get a better value than GoDaddy but you have a choice. If Verisign raises prices... well you cannot go anywhere else. That to me is a big difference. We have competition.

It is inevitable that ICANN - VeriSign are going to raise the .com price, I think it is more about are they going to negotiate the current terms down some to more accommodate the register and consumer.

 

[equity78]

It is a simply answer. One is a monopoly. The other is not.
If people don't understand the difference then they need to take a class in economics.

There is no financial or public interest justification for the price increase.

Brad

Brad you seriously don't think end users who believe they are being gouged care about that do you? Technically every owner has a monopoly on a specific domain name. If I want DataCube.com (which I do, hahaha) you have the monopoly there.

I will give a better example and I was trying to get this blog post written today but have been busy with some stuff and now waiting for dinner to get here.

On Valentine's day I was in a Starbucks talking with another guy who just got into domains recently. We were talking about the increase and another person said how much is the registration going up? I said 7% the guy I was with said, don't you just hate Verisign? The guy replied I don't hate verisign I hate domain hoarders. He then spent the next 10 minutes talking about how 10 years ago he tried to buy a name for the company he started.

Bottom line outside of domainers many don't believe we have the justification for the price.

 

[equity78]

Someone can go and buy Data Cube and add a word, or pick an entirely different domain.

There is a huge difference between controlling a specific domain, and controlling all of them.
Also, unlike new extensions Versign does not even own the extension. They have a sweetheart deal that allows them a de facto monopoly.

If you read the comments, the vast majority are comments from non-domainers who are against this.

Brad

Yes but last I checked people everywhere complain about every price increase. You also have some domainers saying .com should be $1,000 or $100 or $50. If you are a non domainer and own 1 or 2 domains paying $8.49 or $9.35 is not rocking your world or changing your life in anyway.

Now the issue of why the contract does not go out for tender is something ICANN needs to be pressed on. Verisign has a contract where they have an advantage, they are not going to give that up voluntarily. ICANN has to be forced to make the contract open tender.

 

[Joe Styler]

another incredible


I used to be a totally loyal customer to Godaddy, I still use your domain aftermarket product, I do not dislike Godaddy, I simply don’t like the fees associated with having domain names there. I don’t want to pay for privacy, I don’t want to have to buy a domain club membership for $89 a year so I can get a lower price than $17.99 a year .com registration , auction wise, I don’t want to pay $4.99 for a reserve listing fee. All that money adds up to a big expense when you own over 400 domain names.

Like I said, I do not dislike Godaddy, I like Godaddy, I just hope one day some of the above fees are up for at least a negotiation.

Thanks. I appreciate that feedback.

 

[Business Brands]

Joe, are you planning to answer my questions?

Are you going to lead a Class Action Lawsuit Against VeriSign?

Are you diffusing the outrage of this robbery?