.COM prices will Hike!!

As I wrote earlier, its now almost certain, that .COM prices will hike. Internet’s overseeing body ICANN has struck a deal with VeriSign(the keeper of the keys) under which the latter will be allowed to increase the registration charges of .COM domains by 7 percent annually in four of next six years. In the remaining two years, VeriSign can raise the fees only in the event of a security threat or to comply with an ICANN mandate. The deal now just needs the approval of US Department of Commerce before it gets implemented.

As expected, the registrars have strongly opposed this deal which will allow the price hike by VeriSign but the more of an opposition issue seems to be the fact that VeriSign will get the first opportunity to renew its contract of “keeper of the keys” when it expires in 2012, and its hardly likely that VeriSign would forfeit it!! So that does mean that no other contenders will get a chance to become the overlord of .COM & .NET registries!! A strong voice in this issue seems to be that of Network Solutions Inc., a domain registrar which was till sometime back a subsidiary of VeriSign before it was sold off. Network Solutions CEO, Champ Mitchell, was quoted as saying:

We are disappointed that after hearing from so many Internet stakeholders about why this proposal is anticompetitive, the ICANN board still approved a known bad deal.

He apparently has also urged the government to reject this deal, which I don’t think will be rejected.

A price increase of 7 percent will result in an increase in the annual fees of a .COM domain by around 60-70 cents given that usually domains retail at around $9-$10, but that depends since its not necessary that the registrars will hike their fees by 7 percent or more. Still, to those having a few domains, it won’t effect much but people having many domains will certainly be affected quite a lot.