Domain Registration Related News
Proposed ICANN Fees Generate Heat, But Not
Price Hikes
May 2004
The group overseeing Internet domain
registrations is proposing to sharply raise the
fees it charges Internet registrars, drawing
protests from both large and small domain sellers.
The Internet Corp for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
wants to increase its budgeted revenue from $8.7
million to more than $16 million, with about 80
percent of that coming from registrars. ICANN's
2004-2005 budget (PDF) adds a new fee that will
average about $19,200 per registrar, along with a
25-cent fee for each domain sold.
"This budget significantly changes the funding
model of ICANN, and threatens the existence of a
large number of registrars," according to Bhavin
Turakhia of Directi, a registrar based in India,
who has launched a website protesting the proposed
fee changes. "The current budget favors larger
registrars and will actually put the smaller and
mid-sized ones out of business."
Turakhia represents a group of 26 smaller
registrars, who say the new fee structure also
hurts international registrars' ability to compete
against companies in America, which is home to the
industry's largest players. Those larger domain
sellers aren't thrilled, either. The new fee
structure would likely mean annual fee increases
of $536,000 for Network Solutions, $273,000 for
Tucows and $253,000 for GoDaddy, according to
ICANN's Kurt Pritz.
Given the current competition among discount
domain sellers, it appears unlikely that the new
fees will lead to higher costs for consumers. 1&1
Internet remains the pricing leader at $5.99 for a
one-year dot-com signup, while AIT Domains lowered
its price to $6.95. Going the other direction was
GoDaddy, which raised its fees to $8.95, the high
end of a range in which its prices have fluctuated
from month-to-month.
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