No, No No!!! Agreement with Verisign is bad for our industry
Sirs: We have been in the web hosting, domain sales, and site development business for 5 years. As the owner of a web hosting business, the cost of ".com" domain names is of great concern. Giving Verisign a continued monopoly on ".com" domains and the right to increase the price by 7% per year will lead to a number of problems: 1. It will lead to industry consolidation due to the unfair competitive advantage of Network Solutions / Verisign. Network Solutions is owned by Verisign. Therefore, Network Solutions will have an unfair competitive advantage selling websites, email, and other services. The problem is quite simple: Even though Network Solutions will pay the same price for a domain as their competition, they will be able to reduce their prices and margin on hosting and other services due to the fact that Verisign is the ".com" vendor. For example: I sell a ".com" with one year of basic hosting for $49.00. I have a hard cost of $6.00 for the domain name. Network Solution can sell the same package of ".com" and basic hosting for $43.00 and the Verisign / Network Solutions monopoly will NOT have to pay $6.00 to a third party for the domain registration. So, Network Solutions ALREADY has an unfair competitive advantage due to their relationship with Verisign. While it is relatively easy to make up for a $6.00 cost disadvantage, as the cost of a ".com" rises, the competitive advantage to Verisign / Network Solutions continues to increase and our ability to overcome price objections becomes ever more difficult. 2. At a time when technology and infrastructure are reducing the costs of delivering a domain name, Verisign is being given the right to increase the price of ".com" domains without any competitive pressures to keep the prices in line. 3. Verisign will use Network Solutions and their other marketplace advantages to drive as many companies out of business as possible and further consolidate their market share. While good for Verisign, it is most definitely bad for our industry. In sum, the agreement with Verisign / Network Solutions is bad for our industry and I urge ICANN to exercise their fiduciary responsibility to our industry by refusing to support Verisign / Network Solutions in their quest to use monopolistic regulation rather than competition to dominate our industry. Thank you, Geoff Staples Hostricity Web Hosting 3883 Turtle Creek Blvd., Suite 1812 Dallas, Texas 75219-4432 001.214.599.0260 |