What we would have gotten is all of them, a price increase and SiteFinder and WLS, and no doubt there are other improvements to the namespace yet in store. The fact that the internet was once a public resource seems to have now been completely forgotten whilst we argue over the spoils with a 900 lb. gorilla. Wholesale prices should not go up, they should go down, and they would if there was no price floor (which some see wrongly as a price cap). VeriSign pleads poverty, etc. but the simple fact is that ICANN has been completely useless at promoting competition, VeriSign is still the dominant (near monopoly) player yo these many years later. Do you think it was a coincidence that VeriSign announced SiteFinder on the eve of ICANN getting an unprecedented new three year lease on life? If they had announced it a few months ago (which they could well have done, as I've said, .tv, .cc and others have already done the same thing) and provoked this storm of protest, perhaps ICANN might have come under closer scrutiny. The whole thing stinks of corruption and insider trading, as does most anything ICANN touches. -g
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