We get asked this question quite a lot because people think it’s a cheap way of running a mailing list. The reality is that it isn’t and it can cost you (and your ISP) more problems than it’s worth to save a few pence.

One misconception with support contracts is that they tie you in to annual (or longer) contracts, are difficult to “get out of”, and are sometimes seen to be an unecessary expense, so clients like to avoid them.

On a journey like this one it is difficult to know where to begin, to define the singularity which is the source of this conjecture. It is really a tale of many related parts, each affecting the other, and a tale that tells itself through these other aspects of itself. So, maybe it is better to talk of these other aspects and let you decide.

Representative Rick Boucher, a Democrat from Virginia, is seeking oversight hearings by the House Energy and Commerce Committee to investigate “serious anticompetitive concerns with wide-ranging global implications” over the proposed settlement between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and VeriSign, the .com and .net registry.

On February 28, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) accepted VeriSign’s proposition that would allow them to raise the .com registration fee in four of the next six years, and to enjoy a preferred administrative right for the .com top-level domain (TLD) once its contract with ICANN expires in 2012.