Slashdot Mirror
.net Domain Up For Grabs
belmolis writes "
The New York Times is reporting that the bidding is on for the .net domain currently
administered by VeriSign. VeriSign's current contract
expires June 30th; applications are due today. Three companies are known to be interested:
NeuStar, which currently manages .biz,
Afilias, which manages .info,
and Denic eG, a non-profit that manages the German .de domain.
ICANN is bending over backward to avoid any suggestion of bias due to its conflict
with VeriSign over VeriSign's Site Finder "service" and has appointed an independent team
to evaluate the applications. VeriSign has been lobbying hard to keep the domain and
is reported to have received letters of support from Microsoft and IBM."
To me, this is the most important part of the article:
VeriSign is lobbying actively to hold onto its .net stewardship, however, lining up written support from major players including Microsoft and I.B.M.
At $5 a year for each domain name, VeriSign earns an estimated $30 million annually from administering .net - far less than its revenues for .com, which has 200 million names at $6 each.
I've been thinking about registering a .net domain, but now I'm not so sure anymore. VeriSign is very likely to lose and the transition process will not be an easy one as I'm sure VeriSign will fight tooth and nail to keep .net even after the final decision.
The thing is, the other two companies are the ones that run .biz and .info.
Hardly a reputation that imbues honesty and integrity.
The German company might do ok, but I doubt manyAmericans would feel comfortable with that.
Afilias uses PostgreSQL, so now we know who the Slashdot croud should be rooting for. See the last paragraph:
http://www.active-domain.com/news/2002sep-5.htm
In fact there is a seminar at Afilias starting tomorrow to plan a new multi-master replication solution for PostgreSQL, so they are very involved with open source.
Primary difference: The current process is not an auction. The applicants pay an application fee of $200000 dollars to have their bid considered. The rest is a "beauty contest". The winner is chosen by merit, not money.
So weird.. WHY does VeriSign want .net - what advantages does this convey on them?
.net domains registered. If I remember right, the registry's cut is $5/year. That's $25 million a year. If you also act as registrar, it's even higher.
.net would be a huge hit to Verisign's income, simple as that.
Because it's worth millions of dollars/year?
Current estimate is over 5 million
Seriously, losing
The article mentions SiteFinder, but before that VeriSign was sent fraudulent email to owners of domains registered through other registrars, and just this weekend they transferred panix.com (registered through a different registrar) to a hijacker. Considering the way the seem to have blown off both the rightful owner of the domain and law enforcement, I think it would be appropriate to take into account the possibility that VeriSign will be convicted of computer crimes and banned from computers by court order within the period of this contract when deciding whether to give it to them.
> Credit card companies aren't ethical. Should they
> be abolished? You can pay the minimum every month
> and still grow deeper in debt---it's designed to
> be that way, to keep people owing.
And yet people are perfectly free to pay more than the minimum payment, and the terms and conditions of the loan are advertised. Credit cards are not pyramid schemes, so there is no analogy.
Sorry, but no matter which way you cut it, pyramid schemes are unethical. They are wrong, but if morons wish to continue feeding the scum at the top, then I guess that's their choice.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.