Little noticed until now among domain name ownership requirements by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a 75-cent annual fee for .net domains beginning in 2005.
ICANN is also reported as expected to expand that hike to other generic domain suffixes, including .com and .biz, in the future, though exactly when they might do so is still unknown.
Published reports indicate that they won't do it without some kind of criticism or backlash. "A small but growing number of critics…charge the proposal amounts to a surreptitious tax that will allow ICANN to expand its budget with minimal oversight and divert the money to projects of dubious merit," said online columnist Declan McCullagh December 17.
"When the fee takes effect with .net, domain name owners will pay an additional $4 million a year, a figure that would leap to more than $34 million if the fee is extended to .com and other popular top-level domains," McCullagh continued. "That's far more than ICANN's annual budget
"Is this taxation without representation?" asked Slashdot.org. "And where would this trend stop?"
Most recently, ICANN put a 25 cent "surcharge" on .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, and .name domains, a move which also invited "significant" criticism, according to Web Hosting Industry News. ICANN defended those moves and is likely to defend the new 75-cent .net annual fee as necessary and legitimate for raising its budget.
E-Commerce Times expects ICANN to reap a windfall from the coming .net fee. "In the short term, the tax could add $4 million annually to ICANN's coffers, an amount that could skyrocket to more than $30 million if it is extended to additional domains," the news site said. "That fact is not lost on ICANN's many critics, who say the group already operates with little oversight and at times acts in a manner that hinders growth of the Internet."
