[Comments-com-amendment-3-03jan20] Domain Registration Cost Increases

[Wynand Vermeulen]

As an operator of multiple websites and app, I have lots of hosting costs to cover to ensure I can deliver the service to my customers. 

Most of the costs of services I use are based on the resource costs of what I and my visitors consume, with the exception of DNS Registrations, which are fixed annual costs, one size fits all...

It is clear to me that the actual registration of the domain is not something that should not be growing in cost, in fact should be getting cheaper all the time due to automation. Thus any cost increase should be due to underlying infrastructure to service DNS Lookups due to web traffic.

Considering that internet traffic continues to grow, I can understand that the general trend is more DNS Lookups, and thus that more infrastructure is needed to service it, thus an increase in cost.

All my websites are relatively low in traffic, and I feel that paying for other people’s DNS lookups indirectly via increased DNS Registration costs is ridiculous. 

I’m pretty sure with the current model, the majority of DNS lookups are for mega sites like Google, Facebook, YouTube…. why should I be paying for their DNS Lookups? In fact I resent it since I already pay these parties for their services, or they get paid in terms of advertising fees. Let the cost be bourne by those who cause it, not the community as a whole.

I suggest ICANN gets on the Cloud computing train and charge domain owners based on the existing DNS Registration, and then add additional charges based on the number of Lookups.

It would also make sense for each user to have a universal portal account at ICANN where all domains I own can be managed independant of the intermediate (wholesale) registrants. Sale is one thing, service is another.

Sincerely,
Wynand Vermeulen
Managing Director
The Expert Box B.V.