More scumbaggery:
Starting sometime in 2005, owners of .net domain names will have to pay a 75-cent additional annual fee to ICANN. There’s nothing stopping ICANN from upping the levy in the future, and its executives have indicated that other top-level domains will be targeted as well.
As true now as in 1999:
“This is an arbitrary cost imposed on a business transaction that is used to fund regulators, administrators and bureaucrats mostly based in Europe–that sure sounds like a tax,” Norquist said at the time. “The idea that taxpayer dollars should be spent to host lavish receptions and secret board meetings in five-star hotels in Singapore, Berlin and Santiago for nine unelected and unaccountable ICANN board members is a travesty.”
Sleazy sneakiness:
…ICANN could revise how it lets the public know about new fees. A prominent posting on ICANN.org’s home page would work. The 75-cent fee announcement was buried in a dense chunk of legalese on page 12 of a document titled a “draft RFP”–ICANN didn’t exactly draft a press release. Similarly, how many .com, .net and .org domain name owners know about ICANN’s 25-cent annual domain fee that snuck in earlier this year? Adding the 75-cent levy brings ICANN’s take to an even $1.
I recall reading somehwhere that 75 cents is about what a domain name should cost in the first place.