Elizabeth Warren calls for crackdown on Internet “monopoly” you’ve never heard of
Senator wants to investigate whether VeriSign is ripping off customers and violating antitrust laws.
Tldr: Verisign, the registrar of the .com tld. They have been jacking up domain prices.
Year,Wholesale Price (USD)
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2012,$7.85 2013,$7.85 2014,$7.85 2015,$7.85 2016,$7.85 2017,$7.85 2018,$7.85 2019,$7.85 2020,$7.85 2021,$8.39 2022,$8.97 2023,$9.59 2024,$10.26
So, by percentage that's:
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2021,6.9% 2022,6.9% 2023,6.9% 2024,7.0%
I'm not sure those raises are justified, but we did just go through a period of high inflation, and even a business like Verisign has employees and other expenses that got more expensive. I'll be interested to see where this story goes.
Also, domain names used to be free.
ICANN signed an agreement with VeriSign in 2020, sanctioning the maximum allowable price increases in return for $20 million over a five-year period. Thus, allege Warren and Nadler, “Verisign and ICANN may have a collusive relationship.”
Yeah that seems a lil messed up.
Maintaining a single tld is a part time job at best.
ICANN jacking tld prices has been a problem so long people complained about it the first time ICANN was created to overtake IANA.
Not only is this well known, it's literally displayed for everyone to see with registrars fighting over domains with ads and people buying cheap alternatives tlds.
The entire business would be such a trivial government operation, and we wouldn't have to lose money to corporate greed.
Elizabeth Warren once again calls for reform on inconsequential shit. She sits on the Finance committee, how about you pass some real fucking fiscal policy instead of yelling at the Fed because of their legally required monetary policy.
That woman is really high up there for useless Senators.
Yeah, how dare a sitting member of the Senate Finance Committee target an American company worth over a billion dollars price-gouging the most important TLD on the Internet and arguably violating antitrust laws. Doesn't she know that politicians are each only allowed one issue to care about? And that now she's wasted hers?
Edit: Also, she's literally the chair of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Economic Policy which – you guessed it – includes issues regarding the Federal Reserve. Keeping an eye on the Fed is something she does as part of her job. Here's her three days ago yelling at the Fed. Because that's her job.
