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Billing question: what's this 'ICANN fee' really funding?

General Discussion by prague1983 21 replies 5.2K views
prague1983

Member OP

btw I use Arch

#1

So I just got my renewal from Contabo and there's this €0.18 "ICANN fee" tacked on. Eighteen cents. Every domain, every year. Just use a registrar that eats the cost, right? WRONG, they ALL do it.

But here's the thing. ICANN's a nonprofit. Where's this money GOING? I did the math. ~200M domains × $0.18 = $36 million a year. For what? Maintaining a text file? Skill issue on my part for caring, probably.

Someone tell me this isn't funding someone's yacht. Or do I need to spin up a tinfoil hat VPS.

oops: 0000 [#1] SMP
YuriDavid

Member

#2

---
- NOTE: ICANN publishes financials
- but parsing them requires:
- patience
- PDF reader from 2011
- will to live
- WARNING: "IANA functions" is actual budget line
- vague enough to mean anything
---
- my theory tiers:
- tier 1: actual DNS infrastructure
- tier 2: endless meetings in Geneva
- tier 3: black budget for killing new TLDs that compete with .com

indentation is not optional
jane_ffm

Member

#3

Hi all — thanks for raising this, it's a fair question.

I can't speak to ICANN's internal allocation (not my org!), but here's what I can confirm from our side:

  • We pass through the fee at cost — no markup
  • Applies to all gTLDs (.com, .net, .org, etc.)
  • CcTLDs (.us, .de, etc.) set their own fee structures

I'm happy to check your specific invoice line-items via DM if helpful.

— Jane @ Contabo

Single mode till I die 💀
larryjeong

Member

#4

The real question is why Contabo charges €12.99 for .com when InterServer has em for $8.95

Icann fee is whatever man, im paying $4.04 extra for the same text file

A lot of these fees are just made up anyway, definitely recieved "processing fees" that went nowhere

$3/year. 128MB RAM. Pure happiness.
tallinnying

Member

Night Shift

#5

36 million for a text file seems high even by nonprofit standards

builds at 3AM, sleeps at noon
Doug

Member

New Jersey

#6

InterServer at $8.95 makes the icann fee noise feel silly

grabs popcorn, checks /r/drama
hankels

Member

52 VPS and counting

#7

Contabo's €12.99 stings when you stack it across 20+ domains

seedbox, NAS, tape, and three offsite
JO

Member

#8

Tier 2 is my bet, I've seen those per-diems

BI

Member

#9

Contabo eats nothing. €0.18 is €0.18.

Doug

Member

New Jersey

#10

20+ domains here. It adds up.

grabs popcorn, checks /r/drama

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