This is not good and at the centre of it lies the function of the Internet Assigned Names Authority (IANA) - which is the control panel of the Internet. The rest of the world is unhappy with the way ICANN uses its control over IANA. And ICANN will relinquish control of IANA over its dead body.Unfortunately for ICANN, CENTR asks a legitimate question: how come that IANA has gone from costing $250,000 in 1996 to $5m next year when the amount of work has barely moved? That's a 20-fold increase, the letter points out.
[theregister.co.uk...]
when the amount of work has barely moved?
It was reported yesterday [technewsworld.com] that domain name registrations and activity are at an all time high.
VeiSign said country code TLDs... are accounting for a growing portion of overall domain names and now represent 40 percent of all domain names registered worldwide... on the basis of 11 billion queries per day against the .com and .net domain names, there is no doubt that usage and numbers of names will continue to climb steadily.
Additionally, 50% of .info registrations are being regged from Europe, with 25% being registered from Germany.
With the high cost of registering ccTLD's, CENTR must be awash in money. One has to ask what they are spending the money on.
There are two stories going on here and nothing will change until a lot of champagne and caviar is sent back to the store- on both sides of the Atlantic.
(1) COMPUTERS are much faster than they were in 1996 and ONE of today's top of the line servers can adequately handle what used to take 10 or more top of the line servers in 1996, and
(2) The PRICE of a top of the line server is significantly lower than it was in 1996, not just on the price tag itself but also in comparison to the amount of money ICANN and other organizations were making. In other words, back then buying the hardware you needed was a higher percentage of your revenue than it is today.
(3) BANDWIDTH is cheaper and more readily available now than it was in 1996.
(4) Automation has increased. A lot of tasks that were done by hand in 1996 have been completely automated now.
In contrast to how much money they're making now vs. 1996, their costs are LOWER. This rate increase is nothing more than price gouging.
Admittedly there will be some "rectal idiots" who have no problem forking over $5m, but doubtless there will be fewer by far than those who can manage the lesser amount.
Better for all of us who'd like some sanity to prevail out there....
