I received an e-mail the other day stating that once again Verisign is increasing the prices on .com & .net. It was the same percentages last year. Any thoughts? feelings? Comments? I'm all about capitalism and freemarket enterprise. The fact that one company controls an extension or the two most popular extensions and just increases prices when they want to sounds like a monopoly to me.

very bad and it will continue as well. They have a trapped market

I thought VeriSign was a registrar and all pricing decisions/hikes were coming from ICANN...
And it is not just them, I received the same letter from GoDaddy.

I found the prices same on namecheap.com ... Or i am wrong? :S

Artashes, you are correct icann sets the price and pushes it down the line. I dont think we will see it ease up. We will see 15 dollar domain prices be the norm someday

If I remember correctly, the increase will take effect from 15 January 2012.

Not happy with it, we ended up becoming one of the cheapest for Domains, then I just put the prices up already to cover the costs.

It is quite annoying, they did the same last year.

I hope it is not again coming for 2013.

I heard that some Indian registrars have increased their Domain Prices to compete against Dollar price hikes but am not sure that how other registrars are increaing errrrrrrrrrrr

If I remember right from the deal made with ICANN, the price is supposed to increase 5-10% each year for 5 years. I can't remember the specifics of the deal, but I remember that there was some talk on this a few years back. Maybe othello can shed some light on this as I believe his company is an accredited domain registrar with ICANN.

From memory, there was something a few years ago that ICANN granted Verisign the ability to govern their own pricing for .com and .net domains for the next "X" years, and shortly there after there was an announcement that they'd be increasing by up to 10% each year.

Still, much better than the $75/year and $35/year that I used to spend back in the 90's

Price increases seem to be the norm for these places. But it is still a better deal than buying domains through smaller registrars operating in some countries. I can't believe the prices they quote when they ask if I'd like to move my domain.