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Pay up or Sell up, ICANN Tells Failing New gTLD (domainincite.com)

Posted by msmash on from the meanwhile-in-domain-registry-world dept.

ICANN has responded to a request for it to reduce the $25,000 annual fee it charges gTLD registries. The answer is no. From a report: That wholly unsurprising reply came in a letter from registry services director Russ Weinstein to John McCabe, CEO of failing new gTLD operator Who's Who Registry. McCabe, in November, had asked ICANN to reduce its fees for TLDs, such as its own .whoswho, that have zero levels of abuse. ICANN fees are the "single biggest item" in the company's budget, he said. His request coincided with ICANN commencing compliance proceedings against the company for failure to pay these fees.

Weinstein wrote, in a letter [PDF] published today: "We sympathize with the financial challenges that some new gTLD registry operators may be facing in the early periods of these new businesses. New gTLD operators face a challenging task of building consumer awareness and this can and may take significant time and effort." But he goes on to point out that the $25,000-a-year fee was known to all applicants before they applied, and had been subject to numerous rounds of public comment before the Applicant Guidebook was finalized.

5 of 70 comments (clear)

  1. Sorry, not sorry by OverlordQ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you can't afford the main thing you're building your business around, maybe you shouldn't be in business.

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
    1. Re:Sorry, not sorry by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      $25,000 for a small business is a lot, but normally prohibitively expensive, especially if you plan to have it as an important part of your business.
      But I see this price akin to getting a delivery truck, or yearly rent on a storefront.

      However this price is good against "get rich quick scammer businesses" such as buying as many crap TLD as you can, sit on them, awaiting for someone to really want it and sell it for thousands more. Like which was popular in the late 1990's and early 2000's for the .COM domains. These are 0 value to society businesses. Changing $25,000 means these guys will need to spend millions of dollars upfront to get enough names to scalp later on. And their markup prices may be too much for most customers. So there is a high cost and little return.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  2. The math holds up by dilvish_the_damned · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It stands to reason that no sales would result in no resource usage, so the $25k may be the only real expense. This is not evidence that the price is too high, but rather a bunch of TLDs are stupid.

    --
    I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
    1. Re:The math holds up by dissy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It stands to reason that no sales would result in no resource usage, so the $25k may be the only real expense. This is not evidence that the price is too high, but rather a bunch of TLDs are stupid.

      Or looking at it from the other way, presume you sell domains on your new TLD for $25/year.
      You would need to sell 1000 domains to pay just the ICANN fees.
      Or only 2000 domains to pay the fee and have $25k/yr for operating expenses.

      If there aren't enough people wanting 1000 domains, there is pretty much no reason what so ever for that TLD to exist as a separate group in the first place, IMHO.

  3. Legit Who's Who, or spammer? by Mike+Van+Pelt · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Spam touting bogus "Who's Who" publications ("You have been selected! Pay use $$$ and we'll put you in our publication that's only bought by other suckers!!") used to be really rampant. Maybe they still are, but I haven't seen one in a while... my rules for this sort of thing are pretty draconian, though.

    But just the phrase "Who's Who" makes my eyelid twitch, and my "Ban the domain, ban the IP address, ban every phrase appearing anywhere in the email" finger starts to itch.