ICANN Approves VeriSign .com Agreement
After months of controversy, the ICANN board has voted 9-5 to approve the revised agreement with VeriSign for management of the .com registry ... perhaps forever. Bloggers Joi Ito and Susan Crawford were among the five board members to vote against the deal, which had been vigorously opposed by most major registrars.
This shouldn't come as a surprise anyone who has been tracking this issue. But the consternation over this agreement will last for some time, and may have implications for future support for ICANN. As has been widely noted, the agreeement gives VeriSign the ability to raise prices on an almost annual basis, with a cap of 10 percent per year.
Posted by RichM 
March 1, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
January 31, 2006
VeriSign Mum on Price Hike Plans
As the maintainer of the .com and .net registries, VeriSign has enormous influence in the markets for those top-level domains (TLDs), which include most of the Internet's most valuable names. VeriSign has recently negotiated separate agreements with ICANN to continue managing the two registries. The .net agreement was finalized last year, and provides some flexibility for VeriSign to raise prices going forward. A similar agreement for .com was also negotiated with ICANN as part of a broader settlement of litigation between the two organizations, but is under review amid objections from registrars. VeriSign CEO Stratton Sclavos commented on the new agreements in the company's earnings call last week, but didn't say much about VeriSign's pricing plans:
If (the .com agreement) goes through as it’s currently written, we would have the opportunity starting in ’07 to raise prices. We’ve made no decisions whether we would do that or not but at least the flexibility will be there. And as well in the new .net contract we currently do have that flexibility starting, I believe in 2007 as well. So there is some opportunity for pricing flexibility in the future. Whether we’ll choose to exercise that as soon as we can or not, we haven’t made those decisions yet.Sclavos said the agreements set a ceiling on annual price increases, which is 10 percent for .net and currently envisioned at 7 percent for .com domains.
Posted by RichM January 31, 2006 | Permalink | Newsletter
April 29, 2005
More on VeriSign Auction Proposal
Bret Fausett from LexText/ICANN Blog has more information about the VeriSign proposal for auctioning deleted domains, and where it fits into the secondary domain universe:
Verisign made a presentation on this at the GNSO meeting in Mar del Plata. It’s not WLS. It takes place after the deletion grace period ends — which means after the registrar-level deleting name services have had a chance to do their thing — so it strikes me as fairly non-controversial. This is an auction for names that didn't sell during an earlier auction.
Posted by RichM April 29, 2005 | Permalink | Newsletter
More on VeriSign Auction Proposal
Bret Fausett from LexText/ICANN Blog has more information about the VeriSign proposal for auctioning deleted domains, and where it fits into the secondary domain universe:
Verisign made a presentation on this at the GNSO meeting in Mar del Plata. It’s not WLS. It takes place after the deletion grace period ends — which means after the registrar-level deleting name services have had a chance to do their thing — so it strikes me as fairly non-controversial. This is an auction for names that didn't sell during an earlier auction.
Posted by RichM April 29, 2005 | Permalink | Newsletter
April 28, 2005
VeriSign Plans Auctions of Expired Domains
Via ICANN Watch: VeriSign has notified ICANN of its intention to start auctioning expiring .com and .net domains. ICANN has not put the document online as yet, but the letter is posted at Michael Arrington's blog. (UPDATE: In fact, a summary can be found here on the ICANN site). An excerpt:
A core element of the Program would consist of a shared exchange platform that would enable all ICANN-accredited registrars to acquire deleting registrations through an online, auction-style process. The shared exchange would enable registrars to acquire deleting registrations relatively inexpensively. The use of a widely available, easily accessible exchange would also promote the fair and efficient acquisition of deleting registrations, while at the same time minimizing strains on the domain name registration infrastructure.A centralized registry would marginalize many existing auction sites, limiting them to less popular TLDs. While VeriSign claims "broad support" among registrars, Tucows has announced a similar proposal. Still other registrars are working with SnapNames or other services. And yes, some supporters of a centralized auction may not trust VeriSign to manage the process (remember SiteFinder?).
Posted by RichM April 28, 2005 | Permalink | Newsletter
VeriSign Plans Auctions of Expired Domains
Via ICANN Watch: VeriSign has notified ICANN of its intention to start auctioning expiring .com and .net domains. ICANN has not put the document online as yet, but the letter is posted at Michael Arrington's blog. (UPDATE: In fact, a summary can be found here on the ICANN site). An excerpt:
A core element of the Program would consist of a shared exchange platform that would enable all ICANN-accredited registrars to acquire deleting registrations through an online, auction-style process. The shared exchange would enable registrars to acquire deleting registrations relatively inexpensively. The use of a widely available, easily accessible exchange would also promote the fair and efficient acquisition of deleting registrations, while at the same time minimizing strains on the domain name registration infrastructure.A centralized registry would marginalize many existing auction sites, limiting them to less popular TLDs. While VeriSign claims "broad support" among registrars, Tucows has announced a similar proposal. Still other registrars are working with SnapNames or other services. And yes, some supporters of a centralized auction may not trust VeriSign to manage the process (remember SiteFinder?).
Posted by RichM April 28, 2005 | Permalink | Newsletter