While it may not seem like a big price increase, .com domain registrations and renewals are going to go up 6.9 percent. That’s likely just the beginning thanks to the sweetheart deal the company that owns a monopoly on .com registrations, Verisign, received from the Trump administration in the form of a no-bid deal that also removed decades long regulations that capped how much they could increase prices year to year.
Moving forward, the company can increase costs at whatever rate they wish without fear of regulatory blowback. What’s worse, the no-bid deal automatically renews every six years so getting previous protections in place will be extremely challenging.
This is just one of numerous changes that made the operating digital platforms more expensive and less competitive. Fortunately for nonprofits, a similar effort that would have handed over registration of .org addresses to a private company that could raise rates as they please failed.
With all the inflation driven cost increases, it’s frustrating to see something motivated by nothing more than backroom deals making the cut deeper.
