The InterNIC currently charges about $15 per year per domain name. Some people make a living complaining about this. We think this fee is perfectly fair all things considered. Network Solutions (the folks behind InterNIC) have real humans working on registering these domain names, processing payments or nonpayments, and doing everything real humans do at real companies. These humans need to be paid some sort of salary. Companies have other overhead for which revenue must be brought in. InterNIC's goals are to help build the Internet as well as to earn money (nobody said they were altruists). Domain registration fees support objectives including the InterNIC newsletter, Roadmap 96, the Scout Report, the 15 Minute Series, the net-happenings mailing list, all of which are devoted to research and education on the internet.
Has the $15/name/year fee stopped anyone from registering a name? Most likely not. Maybe they had to wait a month and buy fewer Necco Wafers that month to save up that $70 "two years up front" fee, but we doubt $70 stands in the way of anyone interested in internet marketing. Additionally, we feel that we're all lucky that 1) the government isn't controlling domain name registration and pricing, and 2) we're not paying way more than $50 per year per name. Now that you've seen what companies charge to register names, which should be free, and to host domain names, the $15 could be a lot worse.
We're not saying the InterNIC is perfect, but we also feel that they do not deserve a lot of the negative press they receive. We feel they could have done a bit more to have avoided the evil and lawsuits that occur now. Our idea is that part of the registration form would contain a place where the registrant has to fill in legal information. There could be a spot on the form that asks, "Is any part of this domain name a trademark that you own?" and then you would fill in that info as well as your trademark number and expiration date.
Our question: why is one company "owning" the .earth domain and charging YOU to have a domain name that ends in .earth so much better than the InterNIC currently having control over .com and the like and charging $15 a year for you to have a domain name that ends in .com? Will the internet community, especially those that complain about the InterNIC's "monopoly," really benefit from countless small monopolies, each owning certain TLDs (top level domains)?
Has the $15/name/year fee stopped anyone from registering a name? Most likely not. Maybe they had to wait a month and buy fewer Necco Wafers that month to save up that $70 "two years up front" fee, but we doubt $70 stands in the way of anyone interested in internet marketing. Additionally, we feel that we're all lucky that 1) the government isn't controlling domain name registration and pricing, and 2) we're not paying way more than $50 per year per name. Now that you've seen what companies charge to register names, which should be free, and to host domain names, the $15 could be a lot worse.
We're not saying the InterNIC is perfect, but we also feel that they do not deserve a lot of the negative press they receive. We feel they could have done a bit more to have avoided the evil and lawsuits that occur now. Our idea is that part of the registration form would contain a place where the registrant has to fill in legal information. There could be a spot on the form that asks, "Is any part of this domain name a trademark that you own?" and then you would fill in that info as well as your trademark number and expiration date.
Our question: why is one company "owning" the .earth domain and charging YOU to have a domain name that ends in .earth so much better than the InterNIC currently having control over .com and the like and charging $15 a year for you to have a domain name that ends in .com? Will the internet community, especially those that complain about the InterNIC's "monopoly," really benefit from countless small monopolies, each owning certain TLDs (top level domains)?
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