I remember GoDaddy saying they could offer domain registrations at around the $2 mark at that time.

And they were not the only ones.

What George is saying in simpler terms, is if the contract for the central registry was opened to bidding from all interest parties, and the contract awarded under normal business circumstance, that is finding a company capable of providing the services, for the lowest price possbile, it would result, George estimate in someone willing to do it for $2 a name.

When the contract was up, other parties including Godaddy indicated they would like to bid on the contract and would offer to provide the same service of handling the central registry at a much lower price than VeriSign was at that point, which was $6 a name.

Therefore George’s numbers are correct as to what the “real” cost of each domain would be to domain holders if open bidding was allowed.

Your numbers are correct as to the actual additional cost if the prices are raised later this year.

Investing in VeriSign won’t hedge your risk, as knowledge of the contracts is already perfectly incorporated by the market into their current stock price. Price changes in stock markets occur due to unexpected things, not due to expected things.

“Do the math for your own holdings. If you own 100 domains, that’s $500 out of your pocket this year…”

At a $0.48 per domain increase the cost would be an extra $48 per 100 domains, not $500. Just a math error there.

Maybe we should buy Versign stock (assuming it will go up 7% per year) to offset the cost of the increase.

A risky play but if you think they are going to have a net gain in cash of 7% then their stock should reflect that and maybe that’s a way to hedge your investment in domains?

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/contact/newcase.htm

(scroll down for their contact information, including their email address of antitrust.complaints@usdoj.gov ). Under a competitive tender process, dot-com costs would likely be on the order of $2/yr instead of $7/yr, which with 80 million dot-coms means that consumers and businesses are paying $400 million/yr more than they should be.

Do the math for your own holdings. If you own 100 domains, that’s $500 out of your pocket this year, and even more year after year as VeriSign continues to raise prices. If you own 1000 domains, that’s $5,000/yr. If you own 10,000 domains, that’s $50,000/yr. For the folks like BuyDomains, NameAdmin, Vertical Axis, Fabulous, etc. who each own more than 100,000 domain names, that’s $500,000/yr and more.

Guess what — if the DOJ does nothing, then you’ve not lost anymore than a few minutes spent complaining. But, if they ultimately investigate after hearing from many consumers and do find the behaviours to be anticompetitive, against the interests of consumers, and order a tender process, then you will save a lot of money! (as will other consumers and businesses worldwide)

Imagine if the DOJ created its own “stimulus package” by putting that $400 million/yr back into the pockets of businesses and consumers?

So, if you’re reading this and agree, take a moment, send a brief logical email to the DOJ complaining about VeriSign’s market power, and maybe a year or two from now you’ll have helped to make a big difference to domain economics (and your wallet) by promoting competition and lower fees for consumers.