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This is just awful. For everyone wondering "how bad can it really be?", they can put whatever cost they like to keep your domain registered. I have a small carp

This is just awful. For everyone wondering "how bad can it really be?", they can put whatever cost they like to keep your domain registered. I have a small carpooling site for ski fields in New Zealand - snowpool.org . I've run this for 10 years, as a fun side project. If they hike the fees to 3K a year (or whatever) then there's just no way I'd keep it going. I've have to migrate somewhere else, which would be a complete pain in the ass. I find it just awfully sad (and probably corrupt) that this happened at all, and I really hope there's some higher authority that can roll this back - or at minimum bring back the price-cap. Very sad times.

Ayesh 7y ago
This is the case for all new gTLDs. .pro to .xyz to . accountant, the registry can put any price, be it zero or a million dollars.
- patrickdavey 7y ago
  Sure, but, people went into those domains _knowing_ that was the case. .org started with a price cap and I for one thought it would stay that way.
- jedberg 7y ago
  .com has price caps. Imagine what happens when they remove those and they can just price everyone out of their .com names, names they may have had for 25+ years. Imagine a world where whomever has the most money can control your brand. What happens when McDonalds buys the Burger King brand because BK was priced out? .com, .org, and .net are long standing shared resources that should not have unlimited prices. They should be capped forever.
  - hrktb 7y ago
    McDonalds and Burger King can duke it in court. It will be more site the kind of wikileaks that could get effectively removed without having to go legal routes. Just have your friends price them out of their domains. Nobody needs to even buy the domains, they just need to be expensive enough to stay unused.
    - Mirioron 7y ago
      If this got really bad then I could see how a site like wikileaks would use some secondary domain name service on addition.
  - K0SM0S 7y ago
    I agree with your principles. If it came to that, I'm pretty sure there would be a hard response by the worldwide body of developers and companies (especially the 80-90% of small businesses that make up rich economies; the biggest corporations altogether barely accounting for single-digit % of national GDP, so I don't know who's the target of price hiking to a ridiculous degree). There are ways to circumvent DNS so long as IP works (I mean the "Internet Protocol suite"[1], "TCP/IP", the real-world implementation of OSI if you've been taught that theoretical model). Maybe a 'public darknet' (a parallel "white net" really, nothing shady about it, by "darknet" I refer to how it works technically[2]) wherein we don't care about a global DNS, and use links + light VPNs to browse internal (firewalled) resources — I'd wager it's doable using tokens to auto-validate public VPN access like we'd greenlight an SSL connection, essentially, probably some 3-way handshake. The whole thing would be public, just circumventing DNS/TLD hierarchy, so indexes etc. would work just the same (it doesn't break Google Search). A neat bonus is that companies could use whatever name scheme they like, "store.sony" would work, and even collisions could be resolvable through aliases. Whatever works but if current DNS/TLD's become a corrupted theft, the world will definitely move away from it — and we don't exactly look back for these major PITA standards. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_protocol_suite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_protocol_suite [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_web
    - forgotpwd16 7y ago
      Another option will be using an alternative DNS root such as OpenNIC which is user owned and controlled. Besides offering resolv of ICANN root, it also adds its own TLDs. The now defunct ORSN was also another choice.
input_sh 7y ago
There's no higher authority than ICANN as far as domain names are concerned. That's why the letter says "help stop the sale", not "stop the sale".
- tim333 7y ago
  Well, there's the US government. They could pass a law in theory at any rate. One of the arguments for allowing self regulating bodies like ICANN is they do a decent job but if that ceases to be the case it's kind of the governments job to step in.
  - koboll 7y ago
    This campaign needs a punchier call to action. It should be something like "Tell the New York state attorney general to prosecute Fadi Chehade for self-dealing if this sale goes through". This movement is lacking stakes. People need to go to prison for this.
dingo_bat 7y ago
The price should be decided by the market. Why do you expect to keep paying the same rate perpetually?

Ayesh 7y ago

This is the case for all new gTLDs. .pro to .xyz to . accountant, the registry can put any price, be it zero or a million dollars.

patrickdavey 7y ago
Sure, but, people went into those domains _knowing_ that was the case. .org started with a price cap and I for one thought it would stay that way.
jedberg 7y ago
.com has price caps. Imagine what happens when they remove those and they can just price everyone out of their .com names, names they may have had for 25+ years. Imagine a world where whomever has the most money can control your brand. What happens when McDonalds buys the Burger King brand because BK was priced out? .com, .org, and .net are long standing shared resources that should not have unlimited prices. They should be capped forever.
- hrktb 7y ago
  McDonalds and Burger King can duke it in court. It will be more site the kind of wikileaks that could get effectively removed without having to go legal routes. Just have your friends price them out of their domains. Nobody needs to even buy the domains, they just need to be expensive enough to stay unused.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    If this got really bad then I could see how a site like wikileaks would use some secondary domain name service on addition.
- K0SM0S 7y ago
  I agree with your principles. If it came to that, I'm pretty sure there would be a hard response by the worldwide body of developers and companies (especially the 80-90% of small businesses that make up rich economies; the biggest corporations altogether barely accounting for single-digit % of national GDP, so I don't know who's the target of price hiking to a ridiculous degree). There are ways to circumvent DNS so long as IP works (I mean the "Internet Protocol suite"[1], "TCP/IP", the real-world implementation of OSI if you've been taught that theoretical model). Maybe a 'public darknet' (a parallel "white net" really, nothing shady about it, by "darknet" I refer to how it works technically[2]) wherein we don't care about a global DNS, and use links + light VPNs to browse internal (firewalled) resources — I'd wager it's doable using tokens to auto-validate public VPN access like we'd greenlight an SSL connection, essentially, probably some 3-way handshake. The whole thing would be public, just circumventing DNS/TLD hierarchy, so indexes etc. would work just the same (it doesn't break Google Search). A neat bonus is that companies could use whatever name scheme they like, "store.sony" would work, and even collisions could be resolvable through aliases. Whatever works but if current DNS/TLD's become a corrupted theft, the world will definitely move away from it — and we don't exactly look back for these major PITA standards. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_protocol_suite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_protocol_suite [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_web https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_web
  - forgotpwd16 7y ago
    Another option will be using an alternative DNS root such as OpenNIC which is user owned and controlled. Besides offering resolv of ICANN root, it also adds its own TLDs. The now defunct ORSN was also another choice.

input_sh 7y ago

There's no higher authority than ICANN as far as domain names are concerned. That's why the letter says "help stop the sale", not "stop the sale".

tim333 7y ago
Well, there's the US government. They could pass a law in theory at any rate. One of the arguments for allowing self regulating bodies like ICANN is they do a decent job but if that ceases to be the case it's kind of the governments job to step in.
- koboll 7y ago
  This campaign needs a punchier call to action. It should be something like "Tell the New York state attorney general to prosecute Fadi Chehade for self-dealing if this sale goes through". This movement is lacking stakes. People need to go to prison for this.

dingo_bat 7y ago

The price should be decided by the market. Why do you expect to keep paying the same rate perpetually?