VeriSign Jacks Up .com, .net Prices To the Max

se7en writes "VeriSign is jacking up prices for the .com and .net domains for the second year running, increasing both by the maximum 7% allowed under its exclusive contract with ICANN. 'Assuming that VeriSign continues the 7 percent rise each year (which seems reasonable given the company's history), registrars will be looking at $9.00 for .com domains by the time the current contract ends in 2012 — a 50 percent increase in six years.' Registrars have no choice but to pony up, and chances are they'll pass the pain on to customers."

Comments

Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[orkysoft]

I wonder if this will decrease the amount of spam sites that clutter up so many Google search results...

Re:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[shanen]

This was exactly my first reaction to the article. Anything that increases the spammer's costs is a good thing, but it's basically too indirect to really matter. Rather Verisign is just acting to increase their own profits and using the spammers as an excuse.

Since we're on the topic of spam (and domains are included below), here's my latest suggestion to Gmail:

Basically Gmail is losing value for all of us as it becomes spam soaked. Even their filtering is having troubles with false positives and false negatives--and the spam is just increasing. Therefore I think Google should act more aggressively to drive the spammers away from Gmail.

My latest anti-spam idea is a SuperReport option. (Kind of like SpamCop, but not so lazy.) If you click on the SuperReport option, Gmail would explode the spam and try to analyze it for you to help go after the spammers more aggressively. Here is one way to implement it:

The first pass would be a low-cost quickie that would also act like a kind of CAPTCHA. This would just be an automated pass looking for obvious patterns like email addresses and URLs. The email would then be exploded and shown to the person making the report. The thoughtful responses for the second pass would guide the system in going after the spammers--making Gmail a *VERY* hostile environment for spammers to the point that they would stop spamming Gmail.

For example, if the first pass analysis finds an email address in the header, the exploded options might be "Obvious fake, ignore", "Plausible fake used to improve delivery", "Apparently valid drop address for replies", "Possible Joe job", and "Other". (Of course there should be pop-up explanations for help, which would be easy if it's done as a radio button. Also, Google always needs to allow for "Other" because the spammers are so damn innovative. In the "Other" case, the second pass should call for an explanation of why it is "Other".)

If the first pass analysis finds a URL, the exploded options should be things like "Drugs", "Stock scam", "Software piracy", "Loan scam", "419 scam", "Prostitution", "Fake merchandise", "Reputation theft", "Possible Joe job", and "Other". I think URLs should include a second radio button for "Registered Domain" (default), "Redirection", "Possible redirection", "Dynamic DNS routing", and "Other". (Or perhaps that would be another second-pass option?)

At the bottom of the expanded first pass analysis there should be some general options about the kind of spam and suggested countermeasures, and the submit SuperReport button. This would trigger the heavier second pass where Gmail's system would take these detailed results of the human analysis of the spam and use them to really go after the spammers in a more serious way.

I think Gmail should also rate the reporters on their spam-fighting skills, and figure out how smart they are when they are analyzing the spam. I want to earn a "Spam Fighter First Class" merit badge!

If you agree with these ideas--or have better ones, I suggest you try to call them to Google's attention. Google still seems to be an innovative and responsive company--and they claim they want to fight evil, too. More so if many people write to them? (I even think they recently implemented one of my suggestions to improve the Groups...)

Re:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[DigiShaman]

OTOH, think how much money companies are spending to filter out all that SPAM. Everything from Firewall, to Anti-virus solutions to block the stuff. That doesn't come cheap depending on how many employees or customers there are effected. If this 7% does cut into the spammers profits in a way that it shuts them down, it will be a lot cheaper over all than the current meathods of fighting spam. Oh, and think how much bandwidth it would free up around the world.

7% increase to knock out the spammers? God, we can only dream of it!

Re:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[transami]

There is a simple solution to email spam. It's called a white list.

A while back I worte an email to a fellow programmer whom I never before emailed. His email system automatically replied asking that I confirm my message was from a person by answering a bran dead simple question. By replying appropriately I was white listed and he got my original message.

Ultimately of course AI's might circumvent any such system, but those days are still ways off, so I don't know why email engineers haven't made this a standard option.

Re:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[Dan541]

A while back I worte an email to a fellow programmer whom I never before emailed. His email system automatically replied asking that I confirm my message was from a person by answering a bran dead simple question. By replying appropriately I was white listed and he got my original message. I get 5 or 6 of those a month from people I never emailed, I report them all as spam.

~Dan

Re:Will this make spamsites unprofitable?

[i.of.the.storm]

The thing is, squatters rely on the money back thing so that they never actually pay for a domain, they just return it after three days and then instantly renew it again. I learned about this when the domain of my school's robotics club got squatted by some assholes because the guy who owned the domains had gone to college and wouldn't respond to my emails, and I was trying to catch them on the small gap when they didn't own the domain, but eventually one of the squatters gave up on the .net domain (we had .com, .net. and .org) so we just bought that and gave up on the other two.

Can't say I mind...

[pushing-robot]

There's a very limited number of reasonable .com and .net domains out there. If they aren't worth USD $10 a year to you, maybe you should let someone else have a chance?

I think registration should be something like $100 one-time + $25/yr. Yeah, I'd spend a lot more, but it would be worth it to kill squatters.

Re:Can't say I mind...

[Scaba]

It wouldn't kill squatters. It would kill things like indie band and vanity domains.

Re:Can't say I mind...

[Brian Gordon]

...which should use different domains. Dot com is for commercial websites. It ticks me off to no end when websites name themseves .com when they have no off-internet existence whatsoever. Use .net if you can't stay away from making up a lame website name to be all legitimate like a business, or if you're a one-man development group (cough Flash developing houses). Use .name for personal sites. Use .info if you're just looking for a cheap DNS entry like I am.

Re:Can't say I mind...

[CastrTroy]

All people who drive are criminals. They are killing the environment. :P. Ok on a more serious note, it sucks, but it's probably the only way to keep the squatters away. Make it not financially viable to operate, and they will go away. However, I would support that the extra fees go to charities, so that they can be put to better use than lining the pockets of verisign.

The USA: Land of Competition

[The Fanta Menace]

The United States is really big on competition. Everyone else has to compete. Why is this monopoly allowed to exist?

Prices need to go up much further

[Salgat]

I am amazed that such a valuable commodity is so cheap still, especially when the low price only benefits those who purchase massive amounts of domains. I wish the prices were at least $20 a year.

Re:And?

[CastrTroy]

If your running a website, the $9 registration fee is pretty minimal. If you can't afford that, you probably aren't getting much out of having your site anyway.

Re:And?

[repka]

I don't mind paying $9 dollars, I mind paying them exclusively to Verisign.

Re:And?

[segoy]

Guy with a 1M+ UID comes up with this to say? Where's my +3 [Insightful and 1M+ uid] modifier?

Verisign isn't perfect, but the real culprits are ICANN, and the short range thinking of stockholders in the US who only care about what is coming next quarter, rather than being with a company long term. I'd rather invest in a company who has multiple subsequent quarterly charges against their income for R&D than one which always makes the numbers (even barely) each quarter, but really has no real direction to expand.

This is why I left my company traded on the exchange for an LLP. Oftentimes there is a lot of investment that goes into excellent profits (prophets?), and shareholders rarely tolerate seeing their companies enrich the lives of anyone other than themselves.

Inflation

[copponex]

The dollar is dropping like a rock. If they are an international company, they probably have no choice. When did they make this contract? They may even be getting screwed.

Re:And?

[TheLink]

"don't mind working for a publicly-traded company, as long as their stated commitment to their people is a commitment to all of their people."

That's more likely to happen if it's a Cooperative.

Even if Cooperatives do as well or even better than Companies (thinking long term is typically better than "let's sack everyone and boost profits for next quarter"), there is currently not as much incentive for people to start up cooperatives - it typically takes a lot of effort and risk to be the "first boss" and get everyone else etc. Companies are started instead so that the person starting them can get the lions share (I have no objections to that).

Perhaps existing cooperatives could create funds to be used to help get more cooperatives started (a bit like what "venture capitalists" are doing).

Re:And?

[TubeSteak]

In a sane world, behaving like a bunch of asshats by trying to squeeze us for every penny they can, would mean that their contract wouldn't be renewed by ICANN; so there would be such an incentive. You seem to forget that ICANN already approved this (and future) price increases in advance.

Verisign can't change prices without negotiating with ICANN.
So really, any name calling and/or accusations of penny squeezing should be directed at ICANN.