Verisign Gets Out of the Registrar Biz, Keeps .com Registry

Perianwyr Stormcrow writes "Verisign shot off a message today saying that they're selling off Network Solutions to Pivotal Private Equity (a firm specializing in picking up and turning around 'under-performing' businesses.) Perhaps Sitefinder was an attempt at maximizing shareholder value for the sale."

Comments

probably good

[jqh1]

Did you ever deal with NSI or Verisign customer service? I did on several occassions and couldn't help getting the "I'd like to help you, but don't piss me off or I'll turn off the Internet" kind of feeling from the reps.

The business Verisign kept is, of course, absolutely critical, and people operating under the brand and direction of Verisign have irritated me beyond reason in the past. So, reasonably or otherwise, I don't like the thought of that company continuing to run the backbone. Still, it works most of the time, and now I won't ever have to call them to find out why my DNS designations haven't been updated yet.

So I *do* like the idea of separating the retail front from the back room folks. It's always smacked of government sponsored monopoly to have the two together -- maybe the new NSI will actually be a pleasure to work with (and I'll win the lottery and the Cubs will take the series).

Does this mean that information will be correct?

[www.sorehands.com]

Does this change means that Network solutions will actually enforce 3.7.7.2 of the ICANN rules that states that the domain must be cancelled if the information is intentionally false? Or will we still have to explain that a phone number of 1111111111 is not a valid telephone number or that 123 Fake street is not a real address?

Will Icann actually get off their ass and sanction Network solutions for allowing this type of registration?

Re:Verisign is keeping .com and .net

[Loge]

I fail to see why anyone would register through Verisign when you have places like GoDaddy that will give you a domain for less than $20 for two years.

Well, I used one of those discount registrars for a group of addresses, and I deeply regretted the decision. It turns out the outfit split their service delivery between two separate companies, with two separate web front-ends, separate user IDs, and passwords etc. (which weren't even provided to me when I signed up). Worse, the group doing technical support was overseas, so the responsiveness wasn't great. Then, "whois" never worked on the domain name, just kept timing out. When I complained to technical support, they just kind of mumbled something like "that shouldn't be happening, hmmmm...."

I ultimately dropped them, and moved all of my business to Network Solutions. Sure, it cost me a little more, but I find their web-based management tool to be very usable, and have no complaints about their responsiveness.

Re:Verisign is keeping .com and .net

[Anonymous Coward]

I moved from Net Sol to GoDaddy last week, believe it or not. Not only do they charge a fifth of the price that Network Solutions does, but they include DNS as well as e-mail forwarding and web-forwarding. All for free. You control everything through a web interface, including full control over your DNS zone file.Last I checked Network Solns charged $40/year or so for DNS access. I am so far pleased with the business. The support and the whole situation seems a bit more personal. That and they sued Verisign the day after they went through with this sitefinder bullshit. Yay. How cool.

Re:This business is really tiny

[argent]

Keeping in mind ALL the definitions of the word...

``It's only a "billion dollar business" because it's a monopoly and because it's been heavily hyped.''

Well, what do you think they mean by "the value of trust"?

I guess they figured "the value of monopoly" was too obvious. :)