Yeah, this makes a lot of sense. Let's sue VeriSign because someone thinks the management of .com was not bid out properly. VeriSign didn't control the bid process, they participated. So CFIT should really be suing ICANN, since they're the ones who control the process. But ICANN doesn't have much money.

Makes you question motivations.

-Todd

And on what basis do you think the price should be going down? The price has gone up for the last 2 years, but that's still only a total of 14% over the last 10 years. And not only that, the increase has only be a total of $0.86, which is even less significant when you compare it to the price of a registration (given that we ignore the folks who use domain registrations as a loss leader for other products).

The price of compute power may be going down, but the number of registrations and queries is only going up. In addition, the attacks on the infrastructure are only increasing and getting more sophisticated. And you can't ignore inflation as well. So why should the price of domains go down when the price of most other things go up over time?

-Todd

I registered my own domain about 4 years ago so I'd never have to change my email address again; it happens to be a .net. Now I face what amounts to a retroactive price hike.

Speaking of nothing practical to add...

How is this retroactive? You're not being asked to pay more for the last 4 years you were registered. You can lock in prices now with a longer term contract. You sign a 1 year contract every year for a .net domain, and lock in the price for that year. It's just like cell phone service, cable TV (really, more monthly), and every other service you get provided.

Show me where you were ever guaranteed that your prices would stay the same, and then you can start complaining. Or heck, wait until VeriSign actually decides to raise prices. Right now it's just ICANN saying that they can. Chances are, if they do raise the prices they'll just raise them to $6 per domain per year, like the .com domains. And since most registrars currently charge you the same fee for .com and .net, you're actually getting "screwed" now.

-Todd