[At-Large] ICANN financials

[John R. Levine]

> The amount of that registry fee is grounded nothing more than the
> assertion - an assertion made without supporting evidence - that
> Verisign needs that 7% registration fee every year in order to cover
> costs.  (Similar gifts are made to the other registries.)

I believe that if you review the history, you'll find that's the amount 
that was adequate to make some lawsuits go away.

The price is clearly way above cost.  Verisign runs the .COM and .NET 
registries together, the costs must be the same, yet it charges $2 less 
for .NET registrations, and I doubt they're losing money on them.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl at iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly