Verisign yanks up domain name fees — again

If you own a “.com” or “.net” domain name, this is very bad news, on all fronts.

Verisign, for the second time in just 6 months, is asking every single domain name owner to shell out even more money to register, transfer or renew their “dot coms” and “dot nets”.

Take notice that starting October 1st, 2008, California-based Verisign which operates the “.com” and “.net” domain name suffixes will raise the fees required to own them. And these aren’t insignificant raises, we’re seeing the “.com” increase from 6.42$ to 6.86$ per DNS (a 6.86% raise) and the “.net” go from 3.85$ to 4.23$ (a 9.87% raise).

Non-content of taking in astronomical amounts of fees for the “.com” and “.net” namespaces, Verisign says that rising traffic on the internet, allegedly from web-connected wireless devices, new technologies that use DNS and demands on improving net security, drive the newly imposed increase.

Domain name owners would be entirely justified, yet again, to interpret this latest increase as sheer greed on the part of Verisign, an incestuous monopoly that’s been decried by both domain name owners and ICANN representatives alike.

Without any dependable independent audit being conducted, Verisign alleges that it handles approximately 33 billion DNS queries daily, with a maximum potential volume of 400 billions — which shows, among other things, how very, very far we are from putting any meaningful stress on Verisign’s current technological setup. Furthermore, Verisign intends to expand that DNS handling capacity to 4 trillion per day, within a couple of years.

For those who keep tabs of Verisign’s arrogance and greed, keep in mind that the last time the billionnaire company bumped up the “.com” and “.net” fees was October 15, 2007 when the “.com” rose from 6$ and the “.net” from 3.50$. Prior to the latest “greed shots”, fees had remained stable since 1999, when the ICANN first set up a DNS pricing scheme.

Because of arrogant price hikes like this one, both Verisign and the ICANN, a for-profit firm that works with the U.S. Department of Commerce to set DNS policy, are continuing to meet with significant resistance from the internet community, as a whole, who view such price hikes as unjustifiable taxation.

Tags: .com, .net, domains, domain names, verisign, icann, internet, price hike, fees, greed