As for Go Daddy being a significant threat, SnapNames State of the Domain Report says Go Daddy led in net new registrations in the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2001, and in January 2002. Of course most all registrars led VeriSign in this metric, and that is a threat to VeriSign.

Regarding the WLS, as the price has yet to be finalized I don't know where you get the $70M/year figure. It isn't quite a done deal yet. Despite widespread opposition to the WLS (and I've slammed it here a few times, and am probably not done yet) ICANN might still not allow it to go ahead (yes, you read that right). -g

You are dreaming if you think Verisign is not going forward with the WLS.

I don't doubt that some other registrars have, or are, doing the same thing, but I haven't seen any evidence of it and I have a few domains registered with various registrars. I certainly haven't seen evidence anywhere that Go Daddy in particular, or all these other registrars (as you put it) in general, are doing the same thing. I think such actions by any registrar should be reported to the FTC (because ICANN is nominally in the US and has clear responsibility for allowing this to go on) and if both/either the registrant or registrar is located outside the US, to their relevant national equivalent(s).

As I say, others doing the same thing doesn't make it right. I wouldn't have bothered responding to such fallacious reasoning, but might as well, seeing as I wanted to report that politechbot has more on this, as does geek.com. I guess VeriSign figures it can take a writedown on good will if it is already less than zero. -g