Well the last part is easy to answer. Unless the new contract between ICANN and Verisign changes this year i predict another 7% increase next year. But the price increase could from a party you won't expect. In this case the domain registrars like Godaddy. Not that the domain registrars want to increase the price of domain registrations but are more or less forced to increase the price. What's going on ? At the moment ICANN and the domain registrars are working on a new RAA (Registrar Accreditation Agreement). This agreement is large and covers alot of topics that deal with domain operations. The current RAA doesn't cover much what Law Enforcement Agencies would like to see. The last few years there has been alot of pressure from the GAC regarding more enforcement. Nothing new. Now all of this is not new and has been going on for years and i would regard this as business as usual. Now i am not privy to the ongoing negotiations but Kieren McCarthy from dot-next.com is and earlier this week he wrote Now this got me worried and i decided to checkout what those LEA's really really want from ICANN. And it is not pretty, but in all fairness i think it is needed though i do not agree with all the points. Let's put the demands on the table and brainstorm a little. Each registrar is required to validate the following data upon receipt from a registrant: Technical Data, sounds like a simple requirement and when a registrar deals with end users directly i do not see much issues. IP addresses used to register domain names. Same as above , though if a domain registrars deals with resellers only like Key Systems this might be hard to implement. Email address verification system. This sounds like easy to implement, though it has to be implemented ie time is money. Validate billing data based on the payment card industry (PCI standards), at a minimum, the latest version of the PCI Data Security Standard (DSS). Each registrar is required to validate the following data upon receipt from a registrant. This couldbe pretty rough to implement not to mention i expect a boatload of registrars having their CC payment collection tobe with third party payment providers. Though validation is one thing the entire PCI compliance procedure can be very costly. Validate data is being provided by a human by using some anti‐automatic form submission technology (such as dynamic imaging) to ensure registrations are done by humans. Prolly semi easy to implement, ICM Registry of .XXX works with a system that can be compared to this regarding becoming a member of the sponsored community. Never the less filling in a capatcha when you register a domain name is not the most fun. Confirm that point of contact phone numbers are valid using an automated system. Cross validate the phone number area code with the provided address and credit card billing address There are actually alot more demands on the wishlist but just this small recap alone will have far reaching implications on the domain registrars. But there is more. There is still the issue with the inaccurate WHOIS. I wrote about this a week ago here. As it turns out (not unexpected) this is going tobe the main focus of the negotiations. We live in intresting times and i wonder what the outcome willbe. I think however whatever the outcome willbe that domain registrars will have a huge task ahead with alot of work involved. Sources : Dot-coms will double in price, but we don’t care -- ICANN I doubt it will double in price though Lifting the lid on ICANN's RAA negotiations. Further more all info published above can be located at : https://community.icann.org/dashboard.action
