Domain fees lowered
The National Science Foundation and Network Solutions waive the fee for a controversial government fund, lowering the cost of domain registration.
Today the National Science Foundation (NSF), the government body that oversees the domain name system, and Network Solutions (NSI), the publicly held for-profit company that has the NSF contract to register the most popular domain names, jointly announced that they will no longer charge Net users for the "Internet Intellectual Infrastructure Fund."
The move comes just one day before a scheduled hearing in Washington on the fees charged for registering domain names. The hearing is part of an ongoing class action suit against NSI and NSF. Domain name registrants are accusing NSI and NSF of dramatically overcharging Netizens for domain name registration.
The Infrastructure fund, created in 1995 "to offset government funding for the preservation and enhancement of the intellectual infrastructure of the Internet," according to NSF, has played a prominent role in that suit.
In February, United States District Judge Thomas Hogan issued an order that temporarily froze the fund, which contains nearly $50 million.
But NSF spokeswoman Beth Gaston said today that the elimination of fees for the fund have nothing to do with the lawsuit. Rather, the move is being made in anticipation of the possible adoption of a new domain name policy, currently being considered by the Commerce Department.