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ICANN Plans to Charge Fees to .net Domain Owners
museumpeace writes "ICANN, though it was soundly rebuffed for trying this in the past, is
reported by CNET to be planning a $.75/ year fee to holders of .net domains and will look at fees for other TLD's next year. Is this taxation without representation? And where would this trend stop?"
I noticed GoDaddy started charging the new $.25 ICANN fee that was initiated in November. Sheesh.
If I renew my .net domain now for another 10 years, can I save the whole $7.50?
Wake up.
It wouldn't stop. Not until ICANN became less of an independant organization and more of an elected body.
You mean kind of like the United States government? Yeah, those folks did a great job at representing the interests of its constituents. And in "Internet Time" it would only take a few weeks before the Internet was owned, operated, and taxed by corporate lobbyists.
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So .com already has a 25 cents charge, and .net is 3 times more expensive at 75 cents. Uhh.. why?
AccountKiller
This just give everybody who's concerned about ICANN's unchecked control even more reasons to learn about and support the Open Root Server Confederation.
The Internet needs to stay unregulated and as free as possible from the corporate mindset if it's going to stay in it's current shape. You can already see problems arising with corporations controlling so much of the public's interest in the Internet such as VeriSign's abusing their power by implementing programs like SiteFinder.
It's reasons like these and ICANN's increasing little fees they charge that something needs to be done at some point and the sooner the better. I suppose the very nature of the Internet is a saving grace - if the current custodians fail the public then the network can always be restructured, if very slowly. There is more than one way millions of computers can be inter-connected.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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I have a few ideas about how we might start.
ICANN only controls non-country TLDs. If you do not like the three quarters of a dollar tax, then move to a country TLD like .US.
Also of interest, everyone here complains about how closely aligned ICANN is with the US gov't. Now, from what I can see, they want to charge you 75 cents a year (1/3 the price of a cup of coffee) so they can privately fund themselves. This leads to getting the gov't OUT of the DNS game and truly internaitonalizes it!
Ignoring that ``they shouldn't be doing that'', etc., the question is: Who cares? I may sound like a troll, but who in the hell cares for $0.75??? I never understand people who try to save every single penny per domain---that's just stupid.
If you have a website (that makes money, or not), then even a few hundreds of dollars won't make a difference---and $0.75 cents is certainly nothing to complain about. Just look at how much taxes you're paying on your cell phone per month.
On the other hand, if you're in the business of hogging hundreds of domains in a hope of selling them... then I understand how a few bucks per domain can make a huge difference in that business model. But then I don't think those people should be in business in the first place.
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
I think there was a story here a few years ago. Turns out that somebody already thought of that. The idea was to reduce the impact of viruses, spam, and other malware by making sure that only knowledgeable users can access the Internet.
Of course, you and I know that whatever body provides those licenses will be run by bureaucrats and other idiots who will license lusers and keep licenses away from those "evil hackers" (like the ones who made up that Linux thing that other evil hackers use to take control of banks and governments).
Its really not a bad idea. I mean, how many times have you gone to register a domain name and its just some company holding it and not using it. They've had it for years and will continue to have it for years.. merely to have it. When I want a domain that is my last name.. I can't have it.. cuz they want me to pay them $500 for it, instead of $20 to register it myself. Its bullshit that some companies can hold onto thousands or millions of names for free.
Does anyone know what grants ICANN the right to essentially have a monopoly on the domain names? The internet is supposedly free and decentralized, and the article makes it clear that ICANN is not regulated by any government. In that case, how did they get to where they are? I admit that I don't really know what ICANN really does or provides, but it seems to me like someone else should be competing with them.
Indoor plumbing
The electric light
The telephone
The jetliner
The internal combustion engine
I'd say any of those had had a MUCH more profound impact on most peoples lives then the internet has.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Most of those changes weren't as rapid as the one caused by the internet. At least, I don't think they were. So if we're measuring profundity by speed, the internet is probably winning.
:)
I haven't really lived through their development, have you?
Also, I've taken a plane four times. I drive twice a day for fifteen minutes, and I talk on the phone twice a week. I use the can...well lets not get too specific, and just say that it's less than the amount of time I spend online. So if we're measuring profundity by time spent, then the internet wins for me, and there are probably others, too (well...I actually use lights even more than that). At the very least, I think we can cross "jetliner" off the list if this is the metric.
The last measure of profundity that I'd consider is in what I'd do without it. Now, I have no idea what most people's lives are actually like, so I can't say what's most important to them. Think about it yourself:
Without indoor plumbing: I'd go outside to do that business. Not really a major change.
Without engines: I live in a place where I can walk everywhere. Very little would change.
Without jets: Those four trips I took? I wouldn't have.
Without telephones: I'd just go over to people's houses when I wanted to communicate. Most people I call are within thirty minutes driving from me, or two hours walking. Or I'd use the internet.
If there was never an internet: I'd have a differnt line of work, a new form of relaxing, I'd know a lot less than I do, and I wouldn't know anything about computers. I'd probably be an electrician.
Without electric light: I'd probably be dead from a fire to my house, or blind from trying to read in the dark. Also, without light, there'd be no monitors, which basically means no home computers as we know them.
So...I'd say that the internet has a much more profound effect on my life than any of those things you said, except the lightbulb by any of the obvious measures of profundity.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
The way $.75 has been used might probably mislead a number of people into reading it as 75 dollars.
Keep this in perspective folks. 75 cents.
like chris rock:
...
charge $5000 dollars for a 9mm bullet, but give the handguns away free. No more 'innocent bystanders'
you can't have everything, where would you put it?
There've been plenty of efforts to make alternate root servers with a more democratic government as well as other useful features such as a better choice of tld's. The problem is to some degree ISP's but more it's the users. Users would be mad if they couldn't access the URL's they've came to know.
To start such a revolution you'd need to get most popular websites to sign-on to the alternate root. Everything from Google to MSN would have to have an alt root address. I'd suggest working out a system by which companies could have their own tld - that might be enough to get many of them interested. If search.google and mail.google could be valid names it might be of interest. If it was a democratic system where domain owners could vote on the admitance of new tld's and various other issues it might solve some of this ICANN abuse. It'd be nice to have a governing body that'd actually do something about domain squatting. Some non-profit free tld's would be nice too.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Great example....
My telephone land line costs $23.00 a month.
the bill I pay is $47.00 a month.
that is $24.00 a month in FEES and TAXES. more than the price of the fricking phone line.
Granted, this is because the phone company is being a gigantic ASSHAT and simply passing their costs of doing business on to the customer directly. It's equlivant of a place like BestBuy charging you the item's shipping cost at the register along with taxes and a stocking fee.
do you think that people would shop at a store that when you bought that $99.00 memory stick they tack on $3.95 Stocking fee, $7.95 shipping fee, and another $5.95 Destination and Delivery fee?
that is why when I buy a car I do not pay their "fees" they try to charge. I will bust a deal right there if they do not.
any place that will lose a $17,000-$23,000 sale over $250 in "fees" is a place I do not want to buy my car at. (Yes, I pull this on them at the very end so they can not try and bullcrap like roll the "fees" into the price.
If more consumers would put up a fight about it everywhere instead of rolling over like a good consumer doing what they are told things would be drastically different.
but that is asking way too much of the american consumer.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The interstate highway system was the government doing the bidding of the malicious auto manufacturers. The main reason there was a need for the interstate highway system is because the auto manufacturers bought and dismantled key interstate rail tracks. This eliminated any other choice for the government. They had to either build the interstate highway system or get into a cold-war-esque economic game of chicken with the auto manufacturers, with the auto manufacturers trying to buy and dismantle the rail systems faster than they were built.
The truth, as usual, is much more interesting than silly conspiracy theories. In 1919, Col Dwight Eisenhower participated in the Army's Transcontinental Motor Convoy. Much of the time the convoy was forced to travel on dirt or mud roads at a speed of about 6 MPH. During WWII, General Eisenhower got a good look at the autobahns in Germany that had made it possible for the Germans to rapidly shift troops around. This was the genesis of the Interstate Highway System started under President Eisenhower in the 1950s.
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