GeorgeK - 8:14 pm on Nov 11, 2008 (gmt 0)

cmedia: This is about the registries being able to set any price they want for domains (i.e. elimination of price controls), including setting a different price for each domain (e.g. cars.com or google.com would cost more to renew than lgjlkjjlkjkjhkjg.com or lkjkjabba.com). Just like .tv.

As amznvibe correctly states, registrars can charge any prices they want, but they're constrained by competition (i.e. if GoDaddy try to raise the renewal price for one of your domains to $1 million, you can simply transfer it to Tucows, Dotster, eNom, NSI or one of the other hundreds of registrars out there).

But, if the registry operator set the price (i.e. VeriSign), you can't avoid the price change. This is why it's important to ensure that no bad precedent is set in the new gTLD contracts that can then be imported into existing contracts under the "equal treatment" clauses.

For example, someone who wants to run .store or .shop might want to charge more for cars.store or google.shop than for mylonganduselessdomain.store or thisisareallylongandhardtotype.shop. VeriSign would then be able to say "Hey, ICANN, we want to be able to do that too!" And then they can point to their contract with ICANN that says "We are entitled to equal treatment, so we insist that we get what you gave to .shop and .store."

That's when your renewal price for a domain you've invested and built up over the past 10 years or that you've bought at a high price (e.g. business.com, creditcards.com, sex.com) will see VeriSign potentially jack up fees on. e.g. Books.tv now has a renewal price through .tv of $25,000/yr. Imagine what it would be for desirable .com domains.