http://news.com.com/ICANN+partying+like+its+1999/2010-1071_3-5495758.html ICANN partying like it's 1999 December 20, 2004, 4:00 AM PT By Declan McCullagh It's been five years since Internet users had to worry about paying an extra $1 or so annual fee--akin to a tax--for each .com, .net or .org domain name they own. Now the international organization that oversees domain names has rediscovered the idea. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) believes it needs a fatter budget funded by domain name fees--and plans to start charging domain name owners in a process that will begin next year. Starting sometime in 2005, owners of .net domain names will have to pay a 75-cent additional annual fee to ICANN. There's nothing stopping ICANN from upping the levy in the future, and its executives have indicated that other top-level domains will be targeted as well. Before deciding to play tax collector, though, ICANN should consider what happened back in 1999 that caused it to concoct and then abandon the idea. [...remainder snipped...] _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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