Verisign seeks to double the wholesale cost of .net domain names.
This represents a huge cost on entrepreneurs, small businesses, brand owners and domain investors.
Why should ICANN recklessly award this $130M -> $260M monopoly to Verisign?
Furthermore, the annual rise in wholesale fees for maintaining registrations for .net domain names is completely unjustified and unnecessary.
In 2006, the wholesale cost of a .net domain name was only $3.00.
In 2007, it rose to $3.50.
Today, it’s $9.92 and going up to $10.67 soon.
Why should it ever go higher?
Verisign wants to raise it to $18.90 per .net domain name!
Registries should be bidding on the privilege to host a database of domain names and collect fees from registrars.
Why didn’t ICANN put the .net registry up for tender?
Verisign seeks to double the wholesale cost of .net domain names. This represents a huge cost on entrepreneurs, small businesses, brand owners and domain investors. Why should ICANN recklessly award this $130M -> $260M monopoly to Verisign?
https://twitter.com/davidmichaels/status/1660719701595652097
In summary, Domain Law Podcast opposes the adoption of the proposed .net registry agreement. The proposed no-bid contract award to Verisign, complete with fee increases, indicates that ICANN’s board has breached its fiduciary duty to the .net domain owners.
Congress entrusted ICANN with the mandate to manage the .com and .net TLDs for the benefit of the public. The .net TLD was created for research and education networks.
On September 28, 1999, ICANN announced tentative agreement with the United States Department of Commerce and Network Solutions, Inc. on a series of agreements that will put the newly introduced competition among registrars in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs on a permanent and firmer footing. After written and oral public comments, these agreements were revised in several respects and were adopted by the ICANN Board on November 4, 1999.
One of these agreements is a registry agreement under which NSI will operate the registry for the .com, .net, and .org top-level domains according to requirements stated in the agreement and developed in the future through the ICANN consensus-based process.
Over the past decades, ICANN has failed to manage the .com and .net in a manner that meets the expectations of a fiduciary. No persons working for the government would ever be permitted to behave as ICANN’s decision makers have, namely, accepting gifts, drinks, food, travel, and more.
The presumptive award of the .net registry contract to Verisign with no negotiations as to the wholesale fees or public tender tends to indicate that ICANN’s decision makers have been compromised and are failing to act in the public interest. This is a breach of their fiduciary duty to domain registrants. ICANN has given Verisign a monopoly on both .com and .net domain names and this is unacceptable.
Many stakeholders filed a plethora of comments about the April 2023 proposed ICANN .net TLD registry contract at this link: