Hmmm. Leveraging a monopoly in order to add new services that supposedly benefit the customer but in fact may further tie them down to just one provider and strangle the competition. Does this sound familiar to anyone? How about the phrase "stifling the introduction of new services"? That's not from Microsoft's anti-trust defense (at least, not this time) -- it's taken from VeriSign's aforementioned lawsuit against ICANN.
I'm not saying this is going to be a disaster. Keep two things in mind: first, that the Department of Commerce still has to approve this decision; and second, that this is a twelve-month trial project. At the risk of being laughed at by geeks all over the world, I admit that I don't hold any domain names (I borrow space from a friend who does). But if I did, I'd be seriously tempted to make sure my fees were paid up for the next few years, just to play it safe. Of course, this may be exactly the kind of behavior that VeriSign is hoping to encourage in domain name holders. Which leads to the inevitable question: are we sure we want someone minding the database who is going to try to make money from their position? I'm a firm believer in capitalism, but I don't have a good answer to that question -- just a lot of misgivings about the power of a name.
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