Domain Registration Related News
$2-a-year fee for domain name owners
March 2005
Anyone interested in the business of domain
names has probably been reading a report released
this week about the future of .net. Prepared under
contract to the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN), the report essentially
says that VeriSign will renew its lucrative
monopoly as the registrar for .net domains.
What's almost as interesting, though, is a
less-noticed announcement from ICANN. It says that
all owners of future .jobs and .travel domains
will have to pay ICANN a $2 annual fee.
The first big question, of course: Where will the
money go? The .jobs and .travel documents don't
say. One-third of the .net money will go to
"developing country stakeholders," one-third will
"facilitate the security and stability" of the
Internet's naming system, while the remainder can
be spent freely by ICANN without restriction.
|