ICANN Wants $35,000 From Dot-org Wannabes

dipfan writes "ICANN is opening applications for companies or organisations that want to run the non-profit dot-org registry - but has reduced the chances of it being run by a charity by insisting on a $35,000 fee from all bidders. VeriSign gives up the dot-org administration at the end of this year (O happy day!). The Electronic Frontier Foundation has criticised the ICANN decision, saying if ICANN doesn't favor nonprofit groups in its evaluations, then it's unlikely that a nonprofit group will mount a challenge to the established addressing companies that will bid for dot-org."

Comments

The Point

[repoleved]

I can see the point of requiring funds... it is probably supposed to

1. ensure that the entity that offers to manage the domain must be financially stable..
2. act as an disincentive to prevent frivolous offers from people/organisations who are not really serious
3. there might be equipment and/or other property being transfered as part of the deal, which has intrinsic value
4. established charities can probably afford $35000

Re:The Point

[Negadecimal]

1. ensure that the entity that offers to manage the domain must be financially stable..

There are other ways to check that an organization is financially stable. ICANN could just do a little due diligence and review top candidates' financial statements. No statements, no registrar.

Re:Is DNS showing its age?

[autocracy]

Yeah, and how do you control registration? What if somebody registered a domain that wasn't theirs? DNS is by nature hierarchial, and it should stay that way. As far as loads go, that's why you query your ISPs DNS, not the root servers. And if you disagree with it, start another set of root servers (don't I wish that were as easy as it appeared typed here).