Verisign Retains .com Control Until 2012

Several readers wrote to note that the U.S. Department of Commerce, in a controversial deal, has extended Verisign's control of the .com domain. Verisign got the right to raise prices in four of the six years of the contract, by up to 7% each time. From the article: "Verisign has control of .com and .net locked up for the next several years, but there will still be a modicum of oversight. [Commerce] retains final approval over any price hikes, and has said that any subsequent renewal of the contract will occur 'only if it concludes that the approval will serve the public interest in the continued security and stability of the Internet domain name system... and the provision of registry services at reasonable prices, terms and conditions.'"

Ob.non-us centric post

[tcdk]

Could we get this under control of some kind of international controlled non-profit organization, please?

Re:It's a good thing if you ask me

[AchiIIe]

How would you like a single company filing for trademark on all permutations of 3, 4, 5 and 6 letter names -- and then turning around and selling those for 10 times more?

Re:It's a good thing if you ask me

[markov_chain]

Yeah, raise prices! That way we can get rid of all those junky hobbyist and personal web sites, and ensure that only high-quality, well-produced sites can stay in business, like cnn.com, verizon.com, amazon.com, etc.</cynical>

Technology Advances

[Mr. No Skills]

Ugh. Like it gets more and more expensive to manage the process of keeping the .com database going. Why does GoDaddy charge my $10 and Verisign charges me $30.

most companies should use .co.[country code]

[interactive_civilian]

I can't really say I care very much. Maybe I don't know very well how the internet works, but it seems to me that .com should only be reserved for GLOBAL commercial sites, and all other commercial sites should be .co.[country code] (.co.us, .co.uk, .co.ma, etc).

However, that is probably overly idealistic...

Re:No, it is not a good thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Verisign abuses their monopoly and shouldn't be allowed to keep it. http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=11 [theinquirer.net] 569

I wonder what is next, after the last renewal they pulled the DNS wild card thing... so what is next?

Prices and Inflation

[dlevitan]

I see everyone screaming about the prices going up. I'm not happy about it either, and Verisign will definitely rake in the cash if it increases its prices by 7% 4 times, but its not as bad as everyone out there thinks. We're used to prices in computing going down. But my guess is that Verisign's current prices are needed to maintain the registry servers and staff. I'm sure they make a healthy profit out of it, but that's the goal of any business, and I doubt anyone else could beat them by much.

In terms of the 7% increases, look at it in terms of inflation. In 6 years, assuming 3% inflation, one would need about $1.20 for each dollar they have today. If Verisign increases rates by 7% four times, That's equivalent to a 30% increase in price. So what we really have is a 10% increase in the price of service, which looks a lot better. Also consider the fact that 6 years is a long time in the Internet/computer world. They may need that extra cash if something comes along that requires massive infrastructure changes.

Now, I'm not defending Verisign and I'm not saying its right for them to automatically raise prices by 30% over 6 years. I hope they'll show restraint and I personally wish the registrar contract selection was more competitive. But at the same time, I don't think this is a necessarily horrible deal assuming Verisign shows restraint, and its in their best interest not to be seen as a horrible company for the next time that their contract comes up for renewal.