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If ICANN only charges 18¢ per domain name, why am I paying $10? (2014)

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Re: If ICANN only charges 18¢ per domain name, why am I paying $10? (2014)

#11

Post by gruez »

kukx wrote: post #4

Ignoring the fact that the revenue goes to a private company there's one good reason why 18¢ would be a bad idea - already too many domains are hoarded by a small group just for resell; I imagine it would be even worse then.

The solution to this should be simple. Every n years, domains are put up for auction. To keep the domain, the original owner must pay x% of the top bid, otherwise the top bidder acquires the domain for his bid price, maybe add a year or two of grace period so the original owner can migrate.

Re: If ICANN only charges 18¢ per domain name, why am I paying $10? (2014)

#12

Post by james_pm »

There are a few different places where the money goes in a domain registration transaction.

ICANN gets $0.18 per gTLD registration.

The registry (Verisign, Neustar, Donuts, Radix, etc.) sets a wholesale price that the registrar pays the registry for each domain year. That can be anything from a few bucks to hundreds or thousands of dollars (see .cars, for example).

The registrar adds a markup to what they charge the registrant on top of that wholesale fee.

In general, ICANN gets very little, the registry gets the most and the registrar somewhere in between. The registrar supplements this small yearly amount with add-on services like WHOIS privacy, or by selling email or hosting alongside the domain.

The registrar also pays a yearly fee to be accredited by each registrar which also adds to the cost to consumers.

Re: If ICANN only charges 18¢ per domain name, why am I paying $10? (2014)

#13

Post by bogomipz »

superasn wrote: post #10

I think if Google and Firefox join forces and create a Dns override in their browsers that resolves domains without querying the root servers it could be a real game changer. I remember this used to be an option in very old versions of IE where some company it using some plugin. This can be an end to all such monopolistic tactics and domain squatting.

You mean that breaking DNS would be a game changer? Yes it would be a game changer in the most horrid and absolute sense.

Re: If ICANN only charges 18¢ per domain name, why am I paying $10? (2014)

#14

Post by ajosh »

hk__2 wrote: post #8
ajosh wrote: post #6

I don't claim to know what the fair price for the .com registry. I will say this though the hosting isn't free. There are millions of requests per second across all networks from all across the world. They must respond with low latency. The major registries are nearly always under DDoS attack. There is a reason verisign has some of the best DDoS protection. All the data centers across the world, the network connectiv…

> All the data centers across the world, the network connectivity, the DDoS hardware, servers, custom software and staff to run it all must be expensive. We’re just talking about the DNS part here; not the hosting. Maintaining a bunch of DNS servers doesn’t cost $9 per domain.

Like I said, I don't know where the line of fair pricing should lay. Clearly, it could be cheaper if they are making $1 Billion. I just don't think it could be a few cents per domain.

I met someone involved in the .com registry. They have multiple data centers per continent with 200 racks of equipment. Those are the major sites. Each major city/peering point may also have a smaller presence of something like 10-20 racks.

It is more than just a few dns servers. I know some of the people at DNA Made Easy. They spend a lot of time and money building and maintaining infrastructure and peering/bandwidth agreements at major peering points around the globe.

They are obviously much smaller than a major registry but they are very performant and compete at the lower end of pricing. Their prices are probably a good indication of the cost per query($125/50 Million queries). I guess the question is the number of queries per domain and how different the level of DDoS is from a DNS provider.

Re: If ICANN only charges 18¢ per domain name, why am I paying $10? (2014)

#15

Post by james_pm »

hk__2 wrote: post #8
ajosh wrote: post #6

I don't claim to know what the fair price for the .com registry. I will say this though the hosting isn't free. There are millions of requests per second across all networks from all across the world. They must respond with low latency. The major registries are nearly always under DDoS attack. There is a reason verisign has some of the best DDoS protection. All the data centers across the world, the network connectiv…

> All the data centers across the world, the network connectivity, the DDoS hardware, servers, custom software and staff to run it all must be expensive. We’re just talking about the DNS part here; not the hosting. Maintaining a bunch of DNS servers doesn’t cost $9 per domain.

CIRA, who run the .ca (Canada) registry operates as a non-profit, with open books. You can read their annual report to see what they spend to run the .ca registry. Their registration fees are roughly comparable to what Verisign charges registrars. https://cira.ca/sites/default/files/public/2015-03-31-financ...

Re: If ICANN only charges 18¢ per domain name, why am I paying $10? (2014)

#16

Post by deftnerd »

gruez wrote: post #11
kukx wrote: post #4

Ignoring the fact that the revenue goes to a private company there's one good reason why 18¢ would be a bad idea - already too many domains are hoarded by a small group just for resell; I imagine it would be even worse then.

The solution to this should be simple. Every n years, domains are put up for auction. To keep the domain, the original owner must pay x% of the top bid, otherwise the top bidder acquires the domain for his bid price, maybe add a year or two of grace period so the original owner can migrate.

Interesting idea, but I think a slight modification is in order.

Like you said, if someone buys and domain for $5 a year and holds it for a few years, and then someone offers $1000 for it during a renewal auction, the owner could pay $100 to keep it. If they decided that it wasn't worth $100, the new buyer would pay the $1000 to get ownership.

In this situation, I think it would be fair that the old owner get $100 of the buyers $1000. The same portion would be returned to the owner as it would have cost to keep the domain.

Although, this could lead to attacks if the price didn't drop back down to $5 a year. If someone owns whatever.com, and someone offers $1000 for it, the owner wouldn't just have to decide if its worth $100, but if it's worth $100 a year in perpetuity.

Re: If ICANN only charges 18¢ per domain name, why am I paying $10? (2014)

#17

Post by gruez »

superasn wrote: post #10

I think if Google and Firefox join forces and create a Dns override in their browsers that resolves domains without querying the root servers it could be a real game changer. I remember this used to be an option in very old versions of IE where some company it using some plugin. This can be an end to all such monopolistic tactics and domain squatting.

Too bad lots of other applications also use DNS so that solution will only work for websites.

Re: If ICANN only charges 18¢ per domain name, why am I paying $10? (2014)

#18

Post by brianwawok »

gruez wrote: post #11
kukx wrote: post #4

Ignoring the fact that the revenue goes to a private company there's one good reason why 18¢ would be a bad idea - already too many domains are hoarded by a small group just for resell; I imagine it would be even worse then.

The solution to this should be simple. Every n years, domains are put up for auction. To keep the domain, the original owner must pay x% of the top bid, otherwise the top bidder acquires the domain for his bid price, maybe add a year or two of grace period so the original owner can migrate.

Wait.. so I am Ford the car company and I own ford.com. A competitor (Kia?) could bid 100 million dollars for ford.com, and I would have to pay 10 million dollars to keep my own domain?

Not sure this is great.. I could see non-profits losing their domains to porn sites.

Re: If ICANN only charges 18¢ per domain name, why am I paying $10? (2014)

#19

Post by bikamonki »

The retail price of goods and services is determined by supply and demand, not cost plus markup. Registrars will sell you both 99¢ domains that nobody wants and premium domains at thousands of dollars. Supply just increased thanks to new TLDs, yet demand seems to be moving slow to these new options. When more of the new TLDs are registered and adopted by the market, overall prices will go down. Eventually, if a blockchain-driven domain registry takes hold, ICANN domains may become free or even disappear.

Re: If ICANN only charges 18¢ per domain name, why am I paying $10? (2014)

#20

Post by spriggan3 »

superasn wrote: post #10

I think if Google and Firefox join forces and create a Dns override in their browsers that resolves domains without querying the root servers it could be a real game changer. I remember this used to be an option in very old versions of IE where some company it using some plugin. This can be an end to all such monopolistic tactics and domain squatting.

I don't think you understand how DNS work. And it wouldn't change a damn thing anyway, it is exchanging a monopoly for another one. DNS aren't only used in browsers.
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