ICANN and Verisign have had lawsuits pending against each other for some time now. At issue are a number of things, not the least significant of them being that ICANN would like to increase the base cost of a domain name. I have not been buying domain names on a long term basis because I think that the cost of domain names should actually drop. This lawsuit settlement leads me to believe that the cost of domain names may double in the next five years because registrars will have to pay more. I guess it is still a toss up anyway because the renewal cost in tomorrow’s dollars probably will make the actual cost with time value factored in about a wash. However, it may make sense to buy it long term if for no other reason, just to be sure you do not forget to renew it — or if you auto-renew so that something does not get messed up in the process, like a card expiring.

This article was posted on Tuesday, January 31st, 2006 at 2:11 pm