[ohashi]

This is the most obvious reason why Verisign is a monopolist and should be regulated like a utility. They make false claims about choice and not being locked in. You buy a domain, you use it, you're locked in forever. And they know it. That's why they fight tooth and nail to protect their monopoly.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

It’s worse if you stop using the phrase ‘buy’ and instead use the term ‘rent’. A DNS provider could 10,000x your domain cost and there’s nothing you can do about it.

[nl]

> A DNS provider could 10,000x your domain cost

DNS providers can't do this.

It's domain registries that can.

[robert_tweed]

This actually happened to me, but fortunately I never actually used the domain. I registered tweed.dev intending to use robert.tweed.dev as a personal blog. It wasn't classed as a "premium" domain and the first year was £5 or something IIRC, which was half price compared to the normal renewal fee.

The next year they decided it was premium after all, and wanted to charge £492,000 for renewal. I still have a screenshot of that, although needless to say I don't own the domain anymore.

[wkat4242]

Couldn't you just transfer it to another registrar? I guess they blocked that but I wonder whether icann allows them to do so. It's indeed ridiculous.

[tdy_err]

Isn’t Google the .dev registrar?

[xelamonster]

They operate the registry, but are not a registrar (bad choice of terminology) since they sold off that part of their business to Squarespace. Unclear to me who actually raised the price here since you can register a .dev domain with many registrars.

That's insane though, I assumed renewal prices were more or less locked in after you own a domain. Even the premium ones that go for thousands say they renew at the standard $12 or whatever.

[Tepix]

No kidding. I had a one letter .tm domain name back in the 90s and they (Turkmenistan) increased the fee to $1000/year.

[darby_nine]

Tbh this seems like a win—you want to incentivize making as much use of those short domains as possible.

[snypher]

Is this like forcing a tenant out of a property because you wish to raise the rent?

[darby_nine]

Yea, but in this case the property is very special. I don't think anyone has a right to own a "name" for perpetuity, especially such a short one—that's just extending property rights to a nonsensical place.

Granted, I also have zero respect for people who think that trademarks, patents, and copyright are still working to promote rather than stifle the arts and sciences, so I can understand why my above sentiment might rankle.

[mulmen]

Ok please stop posting as darby_nine. I’d like my turn with that identity. I think it fits with some objectionable conspiracy theories I’d like to promote.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

So instead of fair use you’d like to reserve domains for the rich?

[samatman]

Countries owning their ccTLDs seems basically correct to me. If you rent a `.tm` domain, you're doing business with the nation of Turkmenistan: might want to think about whether a TLD pun is worth taking on that relationship.

[mulmen]

How do you know the TLD was a pun and not an otherwise appropriate use of the .tm TLD? By your logic why would anyone use a ccTLD?

[seniorivn]

its the opposite, its an increase of rent, because you want to increase rent

[j-bos]

Can they? I thought ICANN prevented such steep increases?

[ryan29]

There are a bunch of different domain types all commingled together; non-premium gTLD domains, ccTLD domains, 3rd level domains, registry premium gTLD domains and, as added complexity, aftermarket domains which could be any of the previous listed types.

ICANN provides some protection for standard gTLD domains, but it's minimal. You're guaranteed identical pricing to all other standard domain registrants on the gTLD, so they can only raise your price by raising the price of everyone else at the same time. That hasn't stopped some registries from 10x price increases though. The only thing it does is ensure they can't single you out and massively hike your renewal fee.

However, that does not apply to registry premium gTLD domains. When you register a registry premium domain you waive those protections and the registries can technically do anything they want.

If you register a ccTLD domain, you're at the mercy of that country's registry. If you register a 3rd level domain you're at the mercy of the 2nd level domain owner and they're regulated by either ICANN or a country based registry.

It's actually somewhat complex when you get into it.

[joecool1029]

Only for a few TLD's, stuff like ccTLD's there's no limit on how much a registry can charge.

[t-writescode]

To be clear, that's because the country that represents that ccTLD has sovereignty over it. That's also why they can have arbitrary, unusual requirements on them.

[adr1an]

We can prevent this by paying the domain registrar ahead of time for N years. It's not a real solution, but it works (as good as any patch)

[parineum]

And if you're domain is really worth that much, you can sell it before it expires.

[mapt]

See also personal phone numbers, which are now "portable" and thus "required for every single identity verification you will ever perform", without being regulated, which means your identity is one $30 bill autopayment or one dodgy MVNO customer service interaction from being lost forever.

[amerkhalid]

And try sharing a phone number. Almost every service assumes that everyone in a household has their own phone. Which is of course not true.

It just makes many services such as Credit Karma unavailable to anyone but the first person to signup.

[semiquaver]

Phone number portability is required by law in the US since 2003. See 47 U.S.C. § 251(b)(2)

https://www.fcc.gov/general/wireless-local-number-portabilit...

[Wowfunhappy]

What if you need to stop paying for a phone bill entirely though? Maybe you're living paycheck to paycheck and money is just too tight this month. That's what I think GP was talking about.

Is it possible to "park" your phone number until you can start a new plan?

[firefoxd]

It's now possible. I work for a mvno that was recently acquired. We have a $5 pause plan. It has no data, voice or text, it just keeps your line active.

[Semaphor]

Wow. I’d save ~$0.52 (tax included) over my current plan with unlimited voice, and texts, and 5GB data…

[me-vs-cat]

Which provider do you use?

[semiquaver]

Yes, port it to Google voice.

[j16sdiz]

Its Google. They can kill any services with no reason

[abirch]

This wouldn't be surprising. It's sad they've let it atrophy the way that they have. My understanding is that they purchased it to train their digital assistant on the voicemails (where we would correct the transcripts for free)

[Wowfunhappy]

I think that costs $20.

[jasomill]

Yes, as a one-time charge.

Though AFAIK there's no law or contract term preventing Google from starting to charge a monthly fee in the future.

And after some time — for me it was 5+ years, porting from a baby Bell land line to a postpaid T-Mobile family plan for a couple years and then to Google Voice — your number will be tarred and feathered as a "VoIP" number and rejected for identity verification by some parties until it's ported back to a paid service (again, after some time).

Even so, it's nice that Google lets me keep the number I was born with for $0/month for as long as it lasts.

[eric-hu]

Whatever the cost is, it's one time. I ported a number to Google Voice in 2016 and haven't paid a dime for it since then.

[Marsymars]

You can port your number to NumberBarn and park it for $2/month. Other services probably exist, but I signed up to NumberBarn ages ago and haven't had any issues the handful of times I've used them.

[liminvorous]

Do pre-paid plans not exist in the US?

[astrange]

Not regulated? They're portable because they're regulated.

[mapt]

Lose access to your number by any category of errors on your part or your carrier's part, and see what happens.

They're not tied to your person with much more permanency than a DHCP IP address. There's no process to verify your identity or recover your number or help you regain your accounts. The actual process for migrating your number is "Sign up with this other brand you've never tried before and tell them to politely ask your former brand to release the number to them".

If I lose my phone to a trash compactor, the process to change anything in my phone carrier account with regard to SIM cards is going to forward things to my Gmail account, which at random times for random reasons is going to begin to demand 2 factor identification for logging in on a new device via texting my phone number.

There are all sorts of crazy scenarios that can arise with double binds like this.

If we had a resilient authoritative identity verification (say, the DMV, or US Passport Office), or if we had a diverse variety of low-trust identity factors that we could check multiple aspects of ("text my mother" / "Here's a bill showing my address" / "here's a video of my phase saying my phone number"), there would be a way out, but all of corporate America heard "2fa is required for security now" and said "So we just text them right?"

That makes your phone not "another thing that people can use to talk to you in circumstances when you're not accessible", which the FCC's portability plan was maybe sufficient for, but a fragile single point of failure for your entire identity.

[froggit]

Google allows you to set up multiple types of second factors for 2FA purposes. There's no reason you should be relying solely on SMS for gmail's 2FA.

[rovr138]

What about any other service that only allows sms 2fa?

[klingoff]

I'd assume regulated in the sense of identity verification and transactions. There's no legal basis for needing a north American phone number, but good luck with any US obligations if you are without one.

[sneak]

Thankfully you can still get them without ID, for cash.

Unlike in Germany, where you can’t get one without a passport or ID card.

[notpushkin]

I’m wondering how feasible would it be to just use a SIM card from another country (e.g. in Estonia, you can get a prepaid card for 1 € that works in EU roaming just fine, with domestic-like prices on local calls). How many services in Germany require you to use specifically German number?

[XajniN]

The EU roaming thing usually works for 6-12 months until you are required to connect to the home network.

[sneak]

Several do require it.

[ossyrial]

There is an alternative to such regulation though. In the Netherlands, all registrars are required to support automatic transfer between registrars. You can lookup your "transfer code", which you can enter at a new registrar, and they will handle that your domain is transferred (with proper DNS etc) and your old subscription stops.

[ryan29]

GP is referring to the registry, not the registrar. There's lots of competition between registrars, but the registries have a post-sale monopoly on all domains.

Put another way, as soon as you register a .com domain, the only registry that can sell you a renewal is Verisign. If there weren't price controls, Verisign could increase the price of a .com renewal to $100 and there's nothing anyone could do but pay it.

This whole thread back to the root is right. Verisign has a monopoly, you can never drop a domain once it's associated with your business, and all of it should be regulated like a monopoly.

[huskyr]

Yup. Think about what happened when the Internet Society almost sold the .org TLD to Ethos Capital and they were planning on raising the registration prices by a lot.

[ryan29]

If you really want to get upset, go look what the NTIA did with the 2018 renewal of the .com agreement. Prior to 2018, the US DoC had a significant amount of oversight and control. The 2018 renewal pretty much gave .com to Verisign. The only thing the US DoC can do now is renew the contract as-is or withdraw.