Eurid, the operator of .EU, announced that it was cutting its wholesale price from 10 Euros to 5 Euros (about US$6.40 at today's rate).
Is Eurid crazy? They're cutting the price in half! Eurid is acting as if unit cost should go down as sales increase!
Haven't they learned the lesson that ICANN, NeuLevel, Afilias, and VeriSign have labored for so many years to knock into our thick heads?
Domain Registry Rule #1: As you sell more domain names and your profit increases, prices should go UP
Otherwise, people might think domain names should follow economic laws and pretty soon we'd be able to buy them at near cost (my estimate: about 25 cents).
Domain Registry Rule #2: People must NEVER under any circumstances realize that domain names are mere database entries
Unfortunately, .EU is a ccTLD, over which ICANN has no pricing authority. So the tough ICANN negotiators who bullied VeriSign into a price increase for .COM have no leverage to stop Eurid's reckless behavior.
Domain Registry Rule #3: If registry prices go down, the entire Internet may collapse immediately!
Luckily, Eurid's price is still above the $6.00 price for a .com name, so there is still time to halt this precipitous slide into total anarchy.
This dangerous episode just proves what ICANN has been saying all along: that new top-level domains may threaten Internet security.
Domain Registry Rule #4: No New Top-Level Domains (unless we run the registry)
As of this writing, I still have an Internet connection. But with Eurid's radical anti-Internet behavior, how long will it last?
By Antony Van Couvering, CEO of Minds + Machines. Antony Van Couvering also contributes to the Minds + Machines weblog located here.
Related topics: DNS, Domain Names, ICANN, Security, Top-Level Domains
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I love you 4 rules ;-)
Dirk
25c hey? Well perhaps if we didn't have to cope with the monstrosity of a transfer system that ICANN and Verisign have landed us with.
After many years they have effectively reinvented a sender push style domain transfer without the simplicity of a true sender push like Nominet use for ".uk".
I'd so love to do a ".simple" where people register their own details with a private key they generate, first come first served, and if they lose the private key - well tough. But I don't think ICANN would allow that, and I'm sure the lawyers wouldn't.
My own top level domain, .ewe, (not found in the NTIA/ICANN root zone) uses a business model that rejects even more of the artifical restraints that have developed under ICANN.
For example, in .ewe one registers forever for one price.
Registrations in .ewe are anonymous and transfers of ownership are accomplished outside of the .ewe registry.
.ewe places no restriction on the names beyond uniqueness and adherence to hostname character set and IDN prefix limitations. In particular, .ewe leaves trademark enforcement up to the courts.
.ewe charges for services, such as NS record updates - in other words .ewe generates revenue from services, not from rental fees.
See more at The .ewe Business Model - or - It's Just .Ewe and Me, .Kid(s)
The cut of the prices was announced by Eurid prior to the landrush of .eu already and was sceduled for the one million domains originally. After having more than two million domains they made their promise true finally which is fair I guess. Besides that I agree absoloutely that the customer should not get aware of the actual prices of domains and that the "magic" of domains should remain ...
lenz