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ICANN and Verisign agree to .com price increase

ICANN and Verisign announced today the proposed amendment to .COM registry agreement.

Verisign and ICANN agreed to amend the .COM Registry Agreement to permit an increase to the price for .COM registry services, up to a maximum of 7 percent in each of the final four years of each six-year period (the first six-year period commenced on Oct. 26, 2018).

For example, if the four standard price increases are taken in this six-year period, the wholesale price for .COM domain names will be $8.39 on Oct. 26, 2020 (compared to $7.85 today), and  $10.26 until October 2026.

Again, like .org there is no public tender for .com that can be operated for less than $1 per domain. The price increases will be pure profit for Verisign.

That means that Verisign will be making more than $361 million more profit every year after these 4 initial price increases. That is on top of the huge profit they are already enjoying.

Without a public tender for .com this is practically common theft from our pockets.

The whole point here is that Verisign gets richer while ICANN does all the dirty work. All this while ICANN will receive additional funding ($20 million) from Verisign over the next 5 years. So ICANN will be spending a part our stolen money, money ICANN helped Verisign steal from us registrants, to get higher salaries and bonuses. Thanks ICANN!!!

At least for US registrants this means that all the money coming out of the US economy goes back in there. But registrants outside the US are seeing the US taking all their money and funneling the US economy.

ICANN is also opening a comment period that is bound to be another joke just like the .org comment period was. This .com price increase was bound to happen after the .org scam. Let’s see if any domainers wake up now.

BTW, ICANN and Verisign picked January 3rd and a Friday to make the announcement. What a coincidence.

Here is the complete announcement today from ICANN:

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and VeriSign, Inc. (Verisign), the registry operator of the .COM top-level domain (TLD) today announced that they have reached a proposed agreement to amend the .COM Registry Agreement (RA). In addition, ICANN and Verisign announced a new proposed framework for working together on initiatives related to the security, stability and resiliency of the Domain Name System (DNS) in the form of a binding Letter of Intent (LOI) between the two organizations.

Together, these agreements fulfill commitments that ICANN and Verisign made in 2016 when they previously amended the .COM RA. The new terms, which are now open for public comment, will enhance the security, stability and resiliency of the DNS; provide limited and transparent pricing flexibility for .COM registry services; and standardize the .COM RA by including certain technical and reporting requirements based on terms in other registry agreements between ICANN and the registry operators of other TLDs.

Verisign’s operation of the .COM TLD is governed by two separate agreements: the .COM RA, and the Cooperative Agreement between Verisign and the U.S. Department of Commerce. In 2016, Verisign and ICANN formally agreed that if and when the Department of Commerce and Verisign made changes to the Cooperative Agreement, ICANN and Verisign would negotiate in good faith to ensure those changes were reflected in the .COM RA.

On Oct. 26, 2018, following a review and deliberation by the U.S. Government, Verisign and the Department of Commerce entered into an amendment that included an extension of the Cooperative Agreement.

Under the amended Cooperative Agreement, the Department of Commerce noted that the domain name marketplace had grown more dynamic and concluded that it was in the public interest that, among other things, Verisign and ICANN may agree to amend the .COM Registry Agreement to permit an increase to the price for .COM registry services, up to a maximum of 7 percent in each of the final four years of each six-year period (the first six-year period commenced on Oct. 26, 2018). The proposed agreement announced today updates the .COM RA to reflect those changes. ICANN is not a price regulator and defers to the Department of Commerce and the U.S. Department of Justice for the regulation of pricing for .COM registry services.

While Verisign does not set retail prices for .COM domain names, the proposed amendment to the .COM RA will provide pricing certainty by limiting the potential maximum wholesale price for .COM domain names. For example, if the four standard price increases are taken in this six-year period, the maximum wholesale price for .COM domain names would be $8.39 no earlier than Oct. 26, 2020 (compared to $7.85 today), and cannot exceed $10.26 until October 2026.

In addition to aligning the pricing for .COM registry services with the Cooperative Agreement, the updated .COM RA and LOI achieve four additional important objectives:

  • Alignment with certain technical and reporting obligations for the .COM TLD with those in the Base gTLD Registry Agreement
  • Incorporation of commitments related to the implementation of the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP)
  • Formalization of a framework by which ICANN and Verisign will work together to support additional enhancements to security and stability of the DNS, including to help combat DNS security threats
  • Additional funding to ICANN to continue to conduct, facilitate and support activities that preserve and enhance the security and stability of the DNS, in support of Verisign’s and ICANN’s longstanding commitment in this area and ICANN’s core mission to ensure the stable and secure operation of the internet’s unique identifier systems

Because of the significance of the .COM TLD, these security, stability and resiliency enhancements will benefit internet users worldwide. The .COM TLD is an important part of the internet’s global addressing system, providing the foundation for hundreds of millions of websites, apps, email accounts and core internet infrastructure elements across the globe. The .COM TLD is an important part of global commerce, making its continued secure, stable and resilient operation a top priority for both ICANN and Verisign.

These obligations expand on Verisign’s long-standing commitment to evolving and improving DNS security, stability and resiliency, through technical innovation, active participation in groups like ICANN’s Root Server System Advisory Committee and the Security and Stability Advisory Committee, as well as in Verisign’s role as root zone maintainer, and operator of two of the world’s 13 authoritative root servers. For more than 22 years, Verisign has maintained 100 percent operational accuracy and stability for the .COM DNS.

ICANN facilitates the coordination of the 12 operators of the 13 authoritative root servers. These root servers are the foundation of the DNS. In keeping with ICANN’s mission to help ensure a stable, secure, and unified global internet, a pillar of its 2021-2025 Strategic Plan is to strengthen the security of the DNS and the DNS Root Server System by partnering with relevant stakeholders to strengthen DNS root server operations governance and coordination; improve awareness of security threats to the DNS; and foster greater diversity of thought to best anticipate, respond to and mitigate potential threats.

Sold Domains

About Konstantinos Zournas

I studied Computer Engineering and Computer Science in London, UK and I am now living in Athens, Greece. I went online in 1995, started coding in 1996 and began buying domain names and creating websites in 2000. I started the OnlineDomain.com blog in 2012.

7 comments

  1. Revelation 6:6

    Why would domainers wake up? For the most part it only really matters to domainers and current and potential end users who haven’t become fat, rich and happy yet and now don’t have any incentive to rock the boat or care about the big picture any more. And it does not appear that most even think about the big picture no matter where they are.

  2. Sounds more like a payoff, than an agreement, here you pay me $20M, and you can screw over 50,000,000 people, as long as I get mine, do I really care.

    As more registrations increase, their cost basis goes down, means it is more efficient. and profitable for Verisign, there should be price decreases if anything.

    Sounds like a BRIBE in not so many words.

  3. Wow. .what a F slap in my ass!!

    Someone needs to go to jail on this corrupted deal.

  4. In 1998 ICANN was constituted the abbreviation of this organism is a matter of the US state for having the power of the Internet.
    Wipo and ICANN in 1999 with the corresponding personnel of the state of this country USA establish the bases of the new extensions more than 500 and dealt with the repercussions on the Trademark and Intellectual Property of the extension .COM

    The Internet is the basis of a political power in the country that I believe the Internet ICANN is merely a private company of the Government of the United States on duty and here everything remains.

    Internet is a world market from a computer you can do everything imaginable to make money and also to ruin, the strategy conceived of everything that is happening today was already written in books of visionary writers of science, economics, sales, of USA and all edited in the USA, I have always told me that these books were my best teachers.

    Because between the lines they also wrote what is happening now with the domains and their ORG extensions you don’t know how many Domainer experts have this ORG in their Name Server (DNS) very many have their own.

    ORG is a profitable business before and now with what we know Ethos Capital.
    The NGOs …….. the vast majority have 95% of donations in the Caribbean islands and that’s it, beneficiaries in our domain market, the Domainers who have portfolios of many premium domains and that are considered capitalists In financial markets, many control and be associated with the best of the best. Do not count on these people, they are in your right not to participate since they are within the system that ICANN created and then this system can turn against you.

    This has been the case since 1998 at the moment and in the future.

  5. Hello Konstantinos,

    New gTLD’s are high liability financial instruments that contain crushing Market Internals for start-ups. It is our opinion gTLD’s real PURPOSE is based on a Google Centric LIE. Its time We all get educated !
    gTLD’s are a fine example of what We call (GHOST Assets) JAS 2/12/2021

    Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (CONTACT GROUP) We don’t Follow, We Create

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