Really need to add (2 cents) to the title. There are people in the comments who think it's 11% of the domain purchase price.
goku12 · 16h ago
Any reason to think that the ultimate effect of this fee hike won't be the increased cost of domain names? That too, more than 11% perhaps?
wmf · 15h ago
A domain costs ~$10. ICANN used to take 18 cents and now it's 20 so maybe domains will cost $10.02.
wnevets · 16h ago
> Any reason to think that the ultimate effect of this fee hike won't be the increased cost of domain names?
Any reason to think that it would be more than 2 cents?
goku12 · 15h ago
I don't know. I was genuinely asking for the reasoning. I'm not familiar with the cost breakup.
Aeolun · 19h ago
So they multiply that 3.8M by the number of registrars active, and then divide the total amount based on what they feel is fair for all registrars?
edoceo · 17h ago
One reason to pay the rent 10 years at a time, for domains you want to "keep"
brewdad · 16h ago
You have to weigh that against investing, even in just a HYSA, that 10 year outlay. Not a big deal if you only have a couple domains but it can add up quickly.
This isn’t an 11% hike to the total cost of the domain it’s more like .2% on a typical $10 fee.
TZubiri · 17h ago
This looks to be a 2c price increase.
The ICANN fee is rising from 18c/yr to 20c/yr
The other fee that rose recently and is more significant, (around 8USD/yr) is set by Verisign, who operates the popular TLD .com
phendrenad2 · 17h ago
This is a price hike to gTLD providers by ICANN.
destructionator · 18h ago
lol "11%" i guess sounds a lot bigger than "two cents".
OutOfHere · 18h ago
Always use the cheapest TLDs. There is no reason to give ICANN more money. It works the same.
thrance · 18h ago
Be careful with novelty TLDs, these aren't capped and some owners take full advantage of it to extort clients: they offer really cheap domains for the first few years, and then massively hike the price. Some businesses can't afford a domain change and are forced to pay up.
Generally, my advice would be to stick to country code TLDs.
firen777 · 16h ago
>Generally, my advice would be to stick to country code TLDs.
Why? Unless you're talking about the country code of the same country you are operating in, (mis)using ccTLDs is basically gambling your domain's survival on the generosity of the country or even the very survival of the country itself. See Mali taking back .ml domain for a recent example.
Just stick to .net, .org or maybe .com for stability sake with only slightly higher but capped pricing.
OutOfHere · 17h ago
I look at the five year or ten year registration rate. Also, I register it for the max duration possible, which is five or ten years, so at least I won't get extorted in that time.
charcircuit · 17h ago
I think it would be interesting if Google were to compete against the ICANN monopoly with their own DNS system.
NegativeK · 16h ago
Unless ICANN is selling information about us, that sounds like a huge downgrade.
charcircuit · 16h ago
ICANN requires accurate personal information from you which is worse than what a Google account requires. A competitor to ICANN could be more private by not requiring a dox of everyone who wants a domain.
Sohcahtoa82 · 19h ago
Don't bother asking why they're raising the prices. They'll just say "Because ICANN".
em3rgent0rdr · 19h ago
Reminds me of the "WESAYSO" company in the 1990s sitcom Dinosaurs.
ompogUe · 17h ago
Reminds me of Apple's "Sosumi" system sound.
hackernoops · 17h ago
Cartel.
stock_toaster · 18h ago
Prices raised due to the tariff on strings. /s
bsder · 18h ago
Sorry, but I want those transaction fees to go up. A LOT. Like one or two orders of magnitude.
There are far too many domains that are "parked" because those transaction fees are so low. Add an extra zero and most of those domains will unlock.
ok_dad · 18h ago
No thanks, I have two domains for my personal use and they shouldn’t cost me like two hundred bucks a year, that’s insane to pay a middleman for that.
nandomrumber · 16h ago
Yeah, like, what’s the marginal cost for, say, a thousand additional domain names? Nothing.
goku12 · 16h ago
Ownership costs of the domain names is certainly NOT the correct tool control the problem of domain squatting. Some players like rich individuals or big companies will still have enough wealth to squat as many domains as they like. Meanwhile, others with legitimate needs like citizens of low-income countries and small enterprises, will be priced out of the market.
Keep in mind that domain names aren't used just for naming web sites or services. It's a distributed metadata distribution system with several other uses like mail server config, numerous TXT record types, WKD etc. If you take the stance that only the affluent should be allowed to access those services, it will defeat the purpose of the entire system.
The real problem with the DNS is that its design makes it amenable to economic exploitation. It's true that the system takes economic resources to maintain. I'm fine with paying that cost and don't believe that it would make domain names unaffordable. But ICANN and the others are certainly demonstrating increasingly rent seeking behavior lately.
wmf · 18h ago
Yeah, but the money should go anywhere but the parasitic hive of lawyers known as ICANN.
TZubiri · 17h ago
In my country's TLD there were a lot of domains that were parked when it was free to register and then they became available.
PoW is a great proven way to combat fraud also.
Right now attackers can create a new domain and a new identity for 10USD, whether a phishing domain or a malicious brand.
That said, there's a lot of TLDs nowadays, and arguably what made .com popular was this precise price combination, which should only be adjusted for inflation, and arguably to adjust for exhaustion of names.
If you want to experiment with TLDs with higher cost of entry, go ahead and find another TLD, or setup an LLC with your domain and distinguish yourself from your competitors.
vasco · 16h ago
"Hackers" buy weird TLDs in bulk for less than $2 and you need to deal with them regardless. This is just gib money pls from ICANN.
TZubiri · 14h ago
You don't NEED to. If a TLD has a bad reputation, like TLDs that sell for less than .COM prices usually have, then you can just block users from those domains entirely.
"Sorry, please use another address".
Odds are you are not missing much from a user@cryptoaicompany.xyz if they couldn't spend 10$ in a decent domain.
vasco · 12h ago
Wrong, with large userbases you're going to lose business doing that, many real businesses using novelty TLDs, at least in the industry I'm working in now. Plus I think it should be illegal from an net neutrality perspective to treat different TLDs differently and to outright deny service.
Any reason to think that it would be more than 2 cents?
This isn’t an 11% hike to the total cost of the domain it’s more like .2% on a typical $10 fee.
The ICANN fee is rising from 18c/yr to 20c/yr
The other fee that rose recently and is more significant, (around 8USD/yr) is set by Verisign, who operates the popular TLD .com
Generally, my advice would be to stick to country code TLDs.
Why? Unless you're talking about the country code of the same country you are operating in, (mis)using ccTLDs is basically gambling your domain's survival on the generosity of the country or even the very survival of the country itself. See Mali taking back .ml domain for a recent example.
Just stick to .net, .org or maybe .com for stability sake with only slightly higher but capped pricing.
There are far too many domains that are "parked" because those transaction fees are so low. Add an extra zero and most of those domains will unlock.
Keep in mind that domain names aren't used just for naming web sites or services. It's a distributed metadata distribution system with several other uses like mail server config, numerous TXT record types, WKD etc. If you take the stance that only the affluent should be allowed to access those services, it will defeat the purpose of the entire system.
The real problem with the DNS is that its design makes it amenable to economic exploitation. It's true that the system takes economic resources to maintain. I'm fine with paying that cost and don't believe that it would make domain names unaffordable. But ICANN and the others are certainly demonstrating increasingly rent seeking behavior lately.
PoW is a great proven way to combat fraud also.
Right now attackers can create a new domain and a new identity for 10USD, whether a phishing domain or a malicious brand.
That said, there's a lot of TLDs nowadays, and arguably what made .com popular was this precise price combination, which should only be adjusted for inflation, and arguably to adjust for exhaustion of names.
If you want to experiment with TLDs with higher cost of entry, go ahead and find another TLD, or setup an LLC with your domain and distinguish yourself from your competitors.
"Sorry, please use another address".
Odds are you are not missing much from a user@cryptoaicompany.xyz if they couldn't spend 10$ in a decent domain.