10 ms·

This is the most obvious reason why Verisign is a monopolist and should be regulated like a utility. They make false claims about choice and not being locked in

by ohashi 2y ago

This is the most obvious reason why Verisign is a monopolist and should be regulated like a utility. They make false claims about choice and not being locked in. You buy a domain, you use it, you're locked in forever. And they know it. That's why they fight tooth and nail to protect their monopoly.

mapt 2y ago
See also personal phone numbers, which are now "portable" and thus "required for every single identity verification you will ever perform", without being regulated, which means your identity is one $30 bill autopayment or one dodgy MVNO customer service interaction from being lost forever.
- astrange 2y ago
  Not regulated? They're portable because they're regulated.
  - klingoff 2y ago
    I'd assume regulated in the sense of identity verification and transactions. There's no legal basis for needing a north American phone number, but good luck with any US obligations if you are without one.
    - sneak 2y ago
      Thankfully you can still get them without ID, for cash. Unlike in Germany, where you can’t get one without a passport or ID card.
      - notpushkin 2y ago
        I’m wondering how feasible would it be to just use a SIM card from another country (e.g. in Estonia, you can get a prepaid card for 1 € that works in EU roaming just fine, with domestic-like prices on local calls). How many services in Germany require you to use specifically German number?
        XajniN 2y ago
        The EU roaming thing usually works for 6-12 months until you are required to connect to the home network.
        notpushkin 2y ago
        I don’t think that’s a big problem though? Especially if you live in Germany and get a SIM card in e.g. Czech Republic.
        wkat4242 2y ago
        It depends of course how far you are. I used to use an orange Spain SIM before the EU roaming deal because they had free roaming on sister networks. But I didn't go there so much.
        sneak 2y ago
        Several do require it.
  - mapt 2y ago
    Lose access to your number by any category of errors on your part or your carrier's part, and see what happens. They're not tied to your person with much more permanency than a DHCP IP address. There's no process to verify your identity or recover your number or help you regain your accounts. The actual process for migrating your number is "Sign up with this other brand you've never tried before and tell them to politely ask your former brand to release the number to them". If I lose my phone to a trash compactor, the process to change anything in my phone carrier account with regard to SIM cards is going to forward things to my Gmail account, which at random times for random reasons is going to begin to demand 2 factor identification for logging in on a new device via texting my phone number. There are all sorts of crazy scenarios that can arise with double binds like this. If we had a resilient authoritative identity verification (say, the DMV, or US Passport Office), or if we had a diverse variety of low-trust identity factors that we could check multiple aspects of ("text my mother" / "Here's a bill showing my address" / "here's a video of my phase saying my phone number"), there would be a way out, but all of corporate America heard "2fa is required for security now" and said "So we just text them right?" That makes your phone not "another thing that people can use to talk to you in circumstances when you're not accessible", which the FCC's portability plan was maybe sufficient for, but a fragile single point of failure for your entire identity.
    - froggit 2y ago
      Google allows you to set up multiple types of second factors for 2FA purposes. There's no reason you should be relying solely on SMS for gmail's 2FA.
      - rovr138 2y ago
        What about any other service that only allows sms 2fa?
- semiquaver 2y ago
  Phone number portability is required by law in the US since 2003. See 47 U.S.C. § 251(b)(2) https://www.fcc.gov/general/wireless-local-number-portability-wlnp https://www.fcc.gov/general/wireless-local-number-portabilit...
  - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
    What if you need to stop paying for a phone bill entirely though? Maybe you're living paycheck to paycheck and money is just too tight this month. That's what I think GP was talking about. Is it possible to "park" your phone number until you can start a new plan?
    - semiquaver 2y ago
      Yes, port it to Google voice.
      - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
        I think that costs $20.
        jasomill 2y ago
        Yes, as a one-time charge. Though AFAIK there's no law or contract term preventing Google from starting to charge a monthly fee in the future. And after some time — for me it was 5+ years, porting from a baby Bell land line to a postpaid T-Mobile family plan for a couple years and then to Google Voice — your number will be tarred and feathered as a "VoIP" number and rejected for identity verification by some parties until it's ported back to a paid service (again, after some time). Even so, it's nice that Google lets me keep the number I was born with for $0/month for as long as it lasts.
        dannyw 2y ago
        Google has already killed my sister's business's Enterprise Workspace plan, because they decided to change their mind, and make "unlimited storage" not a thing. She was paying $200/month and they now wanted $1,600/month. I decided to build a NAS for her instead. This is despite written emails from their support confirming the use case (videography) and storage needs were suitable, and a written statement that she is "permanently grandfathered" once Google stopped offering the plan to new customers. To make matters worse, they gave her 30 days to download all data before everything would be deleted permanently. This is how Google treats "enterprise" customers.
- amerkhalid 2y ago
  And try sharing a phone number. Almost every service assumes that everyone in a household has their own phone. Which is of course not true. It just makes many services such as Credit Karma unavailable to anyone but the first person to signup.
hsbauauvhabzb 2y ago
It’s worse if you stop using the phrase ‘buy’ and instead use the term ‘rent’. A DNS provider could 10,000x your domain cost and there’s nothing you can do about it.
- parineum 2y ago
  And if you're domain is really worth that much, you can sell it before it expires.
- j-bos 2y ago
  Can they? I thought ICANN prevented such steep increases?
  - joecool1029 2y ago
    Only for a few TLD's, stuff like ccTLD's there's no limit on how much a registry can charge.
    - t-writescode 2y ago
      To be clear, that's because the country that represents that ccTLD has sovereignty over it. That's also why they can have arbitrary, unusual requirements on them.
  - ryan29 2y ago
    There are a bunch of different domain types all commingled together; non-premium gTLD domains, ccTLD domains, 3rd level domains, registry premium gTLD domains and, as added complexity, aftermarket domains which could be any of the previous listed types. ICANN provides some protection for standard gTLD domains, but it's minimal. You're guaranteed identical pricing to all other standard domain registrants on the gTLD, so they can only raise your price by raising the price of everyone else at the same time. That hasn't stopped some registries from 10x price increases though. The only thing it does is ensure they can't single you out and massively hike your renewal fee. However, that does not apply to registry premium gTLD domains. When you register a registry premium domain you waive those protections and the registries can technically do anything they want. If you register a ccTLD domain, you're at the mercy of that country's registry. If you register a 3rd level domain you're at the mercy of the 2nd level domain owner and they're regulated by either ICANN or a country based registry. It's actually somewhat complex when you get into it.
ossyrial 2y ago
There is an alternative to such regulation though. In the Netherlands, all registrars are required to support automatic transfer between registrars. You can lookup your "transfer code", which you can enter at a new registrar, and they will handle that your domain is transferred (with proper DNS etc) and your old subscription stops.
- ryan29 2y ago
  GP is referring to the registry, not the registrar. There's lots of competition between registrars, but the registries have a post-sale monopoly on all domains. Put another way, as soon as you register a .com domain, the only registry that can sell you a renewal is Verisign. If there weren't price controls, Verisign could increase the price of a .com renewal to $100 and there's nothing anyone could do but pay it. This whole thread back to the root is right. Verisign has a monopoly, you can never drop a domain once it's associated with your business, and all of it should be regulated like a monopoly.
  - huskyr 2y ago
    Yup. Think about what happened when the Internet Society almost sold the .org TLD to Ethos Capital and they were planning on raising the registration prices by a lot.
    - ryan29 2y ago
      If you really want to get upset, go look what the NTIA did with the 2018 renewal of the .com agreement. Prior to 2018, the US DoC had a significant amount of oversight and control. The 2018 renewal pretty much gave .com to Verisign. The only thing the US DoC can do now is renew the contract as-is or withdraw.

by ohashi 2y ago

mapt 2y ago

See also personal phone numbers, which are now "portable" and thus "required for every single identity verification you will ever perform", without being regulated, which means your identity is one $30 bill autopayment or one dodgy MVNO customer service interaction from being lost forever.

astrange 2y ago
Not regulated? They're portable because they're regulated.
- klingoff 2y ago
  I'd assume regulated in the sense of identity verification and transactions. There's no legal basis for needing a north American phone number, but good luck with any US obligations if you are without one.
  - sneak 2y ago
    Thankfully you can still get them without ID, for cash. Unlike in Germany, where you can’t get one without a passport or ID card.
    - notpushkin 2y ago
      I’m wondering how feasible would it be to just use a SIM card from another country (e.g. in Estonia, you can get a prepaid card for 1 € that works in EU roaming just fine, with domestic-like prices on local calls). How many services in Germany require you to use specifically German number?
      - XajniN 2y ago
        The EU roaming thing usually works for 6-12 months until you are required to connect to the home network.
        notpushkin 2y ago
        I don’t think that’s a big problem though? Especially if you live in Germany and get a SIM card in e.g. Czech Republic.
        wkat4242 2y ago
        It depends of course how far you are. I used to use an orange Spain SIM before the EU roaming deal because they had free roaming on sister networks. But I didn't go there so much.
      - sneak 2y ago
        Several do require it.
- mapt 2y ago
  Lose access to your number by any category of errors on your part or your carrier's part, and see what happens. They're not tied to your person with much more permanency than a DHCP IP address. There's no process to verify your identity or recover your number or help you regain your accounts. The actual process for migrating your number is "Sign up with this other brand you've never tried before and tell them to politely ask your former brand to release the number to them". If I lose my phone to a trash compactor, the process to change anything in my phone carrier account with regard to SIM cards is going to forward things to my Gmail account, which at random times for random reasons is going to begin to demand 2 factor identification for logging in on a new device via texting my phone number. There are all sorts of crazy scenarios that can arise with double binds like this. If we had a resilient authoritative identity verification (say, the DMV, or US Passport Office), or if we had a diverse variety of low-trust identity factors that we could check multiple aspects of ("text my mother" / "Here's a bill showing my address" / "here's a video of my phase saying my phone number"), there would be a way out, but all of corporate America heard "2fa is required for security now" and said "So we just text them right?" That makes your phone not "another thing that people can use to talk to you in circumstances when you're not accessible", which the FCC's portability plan was maybe sufficient for, but a fragile single point of failure for your entire identity.
  - froggit 2y ago
    Google allows you to set up multiple types of second factors for 2FA purposes. There's no reason you should be relying solely on SMS for gmail's 2FA.
    - rovr138 2y ago
      What about any other service that only allows sms 2fa?
semiquaver 2y ago
Phone number portability is required by law in the US since 2003. See 47 U.S.C. § 251(b)(2) https://www.fcc.gov/general/wireless-local-number-portability-wlnp https://www.fcc.gov/general/wireless-local-number-portabilit...
- Wowfunhappy 2y ago
  What if you need to stop paying for a phone bill entirely though? Maybe you're living paycheck to paycheck and money is just too tight this month. That's what I think GP was talking about. Is it possible to "park" your phone number until you can start a new plan?
  - semiquaver 2y ago
    Yes, port it to Google voice.
    - Wowfunhappy 2y ago
      I think that costs $20.
      - jasomill 2y ago
        Yes, as a one-time charge. Though AFAIK there's no law or contract term preventing Google from starting to charge a monthly fee in the future. And after some time — for me it was 5+ years, porting from a baby Bell land line to a postpaid T-Mobile family plan for a couple years and then to Google Voice — your number will be tarred and feathered as a "VoIP" number and rejected for identity verification by some parties until it's ported back to a paid service (again, after some time). Even so, it's nice that Google lets me keep the number I was born with for $0/month for as long as it lasts.
        dannyw 2y ago
        Google has already killed my sister's business's Enterprise Workspace plan, because they decided to change their mind, and make "unlimited storage" not a thing. She was paying $200/month and they now wanted $1,600/month. I decided to build a NAS for her instead. This is despite written emails from their support confirming the use case (videography) and storage needs were suitable, and a written statement that she is "permanently grandfathered" once Google stopped offering the plan to new customers. To make matters worse, they gave her 30 days to download all data before everything would be deleted permanently. This is how Google treats "enterprise" customers.
amerkhalid 2y ago
And try sharing a phone number. Almost every service assumes that everyone in a household has their own phone. Which is of course not true. It just makes many services such as Credit Karma unavailable to anyone but the first person to signup.

hsbauauvhabzb 2y ago

It’s worse if you stop using the phrase ‘buy’ and instead use the term ‘rent’. A DNS provider could 10,000x your domain cost and there’s nothing you can do about it.

parineum 2y ago
And if you're domain is really worth that much, you can sell it before it expires.
j-bos 2y ago
Can they? I thought ICANN prevented such steep increases?
- joecool1029 2y ago
  Only for a few TLD's, stuff like ccTLD's there's no limit on how much a registry can charge.
  - t-writescode 2y ago
    To be clear, that's because the country that represents that ccTLD has sovereignty over it. That's also why they can have arbitrary, unusual requirements on them.
- ryan29 2y ago
  There are a bunch of different domain types all commingled together; non-premium gTLD domains, ccTLD domains, 3rd level domains, registry premium gTLD domains and, as added complexity, aftermarket domains which could be any of the previous listed types. ICANN provides some protection for standard gTLD domains, but it's minimal. You're guaranteed identical pricing to all other standard domain registrants on the gTLD, so they can only raise your price by raising the price of everyone else at the same time. That hasn't stopped some registries from 10x price increases though. The only thing it does is ensure they can't single you out and massively hike your renewal fee. However, that does not apply to registry premium gTLD domains. When you register a registry premium domain you waive those protections and the registries can technically do anything they want. If you register a ccTLD domain, you're at the mercy of that country's registry. If you register a 3rd level domain you're at the mercy of the 2nd level domain owner and they're regulated by either ICANN or a country based registry. It's actually somewhat complex when you get into it.

ossyrial 2y ago

There is an alternative to such regulation though. In the Netherlands, all registrars are required to support automatic transfer between registrars. You can lookup your "transfer code", which you can enter at a new registrar, and they will handle that your domain is transferred (with proper DNS etc) and your old subscription stops.

ryan29 2y ago
GP is referring to the registry, not the registrar. There's lots of competition between registrars, but the registries have a post-sale monopoly on all domains. Put another way, as soon as you register a .com domain, the only registry that can sell you a renewal is Verisign. If there weren't price controls, Verisign could increase the price of a .com renewal to $100 and there's nothing anyone could do but pay it. This whole thread back to the root is right. Verisign has a monopoly, you can never drop a domain once it's associated with your business, and all of it should be regulated like a monopoly.
- huskyr 2y ago
  Yup. Think about what happened when the Internet Society almost sold the .org TLD to Ethos Capital and they were planning on raising the registration prices by a lot.
  - ryan29 2y ago
    If you really want to get upset, go look what the NTIA did with the 2018 renewal of the .com agreement. Prior to 2018, the US DoC had a significant amount of oversight and control. The 2018 renewal pretty much gave .com to Verisign. The only thing the US DoC can do now is renew the contract as-is or withdraw.