Late last week, a new contract between ICANN org and Verisign went into effect establishing terms for managing the .NET gTLD. The contract has been renegotiated on new terms and is valid until June 30, 2029. According to the Domain Name Wire, the main "new" is unlikely to please registrants. Under the terms of the contract, Verisign has the right to increase the wholesale prices (prices set for registrar companies) of domain name registrations by 10% annually.
To date, the wholesale price of an annual domain name registration in the .NET is $9.92. If Verisign uses its price increase every year, by the end of the contract this amount could almost double to $19.31. It's worth remembering that Verisign's registrar was previously given the right to increase the wholesale price of registration in its other domain, .COM, annually, and so far has never missed an opportunity to increase it. The conclusion of the contract on new terms was preceded by a period of public discussion. The draft document was published on the ICANN website and received a lot of comments. The authors of most of them spoke out against the possibility of an annual price increase, but their opinion was never heard.
