April 11, 2007 – (HOSTSEARCH.COM) – VeriSign (http://www.verisign.com), the company that oversees .com and .net domains names, is set to increase the registry fee for domain names, it was announced recently. The increase will be implemented October 15, 2007 and has received substantial criticism.
The registry fee for domain names, their de facto wholesale price, will rise from $6 to $6.42 for .com names and from $3.50 to $3.85 for .net names. This is the first registry fee increase since 1999 and according to VeriSign, is required to cover the costs of the increased volume of domain name system queries it receives.
Critics of the move suggest that with the fall in web hosting costs and increases in resource volumes (i.e. space and transfer), VeriSign should be able to accommodate the increase in enquiries without additional costs. The fact that it cannot is due to enquiries that come from speculators (or tasters) who take advantage of the five-day period when the cost of domain names can be refunded. This has forced VeriSign to upgrade its registration processes, passing costs onto regular users.
