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?"

Comments

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[nmb3000]

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.

Re:It wouldn't stop...

[afidel]

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.

Re:It wouldn't stop...

[MikeFM]

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.