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.'"

Comments

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.