.Net pricing may be fixed
The fresh agreement between ICANN and Verisign to manage the .net registry holds a big surprise: although the initial wholesale price of domains is lowered from $6.00 to $4.25, the price cap is completely removed in January 2007 (see .net pricing timebomb?).
Registrars were given the chance to react to this pricing scheme, and they had a fair number of complaints regarding the pricing. In a note recently released by ICANN, the registrars gave the following suggestions:
a. The price must be maintained at $4.25 and not changed for the remainder of the contract term of six years.
b. The price could rise over time, limited by a fixed escalation percentage (10%) and not to exceed $6 per name over the six-year period of the agreement.
c. The price could rise over time, limited by a fixed escalation percentage.
d. It may be acceptable to lift price controls so long as ICANN starts adding TLDs immediately, rapidly and in (relatively) great number in order to create competition.
e. Price controls are somewhat notable to registrars in the .NET agreement but ICANN and VeriSign ought to provide assurances that price controls will be included in the renegotiation of the .COM agreement.
Also, the latest ICANN note states that smaller registrars object to volume pricing for .net domains, which would make it harder for modest registrars to enter the market.
