VeriSign Gets Walloped in Court, .Com Domain Prices Could Fall

[linkin99]

That was the headline from a story posted by Domain Name Wire.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has reversed a lower court decision throwing out an antitrust lawsuit by Coalition for ICANN Transparency (CFIT) against VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN). This means an antitrust lawsuit against VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) can go forward, which may eventually mean lower .com domain name registration prices.

Reached by phone this afternoon, Fausett [plaintiff’s counsel] said the ultimate outcome could be a rollback in .com registration prices through a competitive bidding process, conceivably to just a few dollars per year. “For domainers, I’ve got to think that people are wondering ‘how fast can we get there?’” said Fausett. The case will likely now go back to trial.

Full story here.

[g1siberia]

this would be great news! glad to hear it

[SiberForum]

That will make happy many domainers. Lets wait when that will happen

[AlexDawson]

I don't get that, why is the US legal system getting puffed up about the prices of .com when most other extensions (especially CCTLD) are much higher, and even if you exclude the monitary issue, .com prices aren't that high in the first place, surely the US government should be spending less time hassling the regulators and more time trying to deal with the people who are buying up domains which violate the law (such as fraudsters). Then again, it's not like there are many .com domains left anyway, all those "domainers" keep buying up everything

[El Camino]

I don't see how it could possibly work. Basically someone has to manage and be responsible for "the database". Currently Verisign has the contract with ICANN to manage the .com "database". The plaintiffs want multiple competitors managing the central database. All that would happen would be ICANN taking on more of the central role & increasing their fees accordingly.

[Dave Zan]

I don't get that, why is the US legal system getting puffed up about the prices of .com when most other extensions (especially CCTLD) are much higher

It isn't the "U.S. legal system getting puffed up about the prices of .com". It's
about a plaintiff named Coalition For ICANN Transparency, Inc. (CTIF) who has
filed an anti-trust lawsuit against VeriSign.

The gist of it is CTIF believes VeriSign violated U.S. anti-trust laws when they
were "awarded" the contract to manage the .com/.net Registry by ICANN, as
part of their original VeriSign-ICANN lawsuit settlement. The .com/.net contract
was supposed to be bid on by multiple parties to bring .com prices down, but
it wasn't.

Since then, VeriSign saw fit to raise their prices twice in a few years. It made
registrars raise their .com prices in turn, which goes against the original intent
to let someone else manage the .com Registry to lower prices.

Unlike generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) like .com and .net, though, country
code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDS) aren't governed by ICANN but by their host
countries. Obviously those countries can set whatever price they see fit, and
whether those prices should go down or not are up to other interested parties
to figure that out.

The plaintiffs want multiple competitors managing the central database.

No. They want multiple parties to competitively bid for the .com/.net contract
to lower prices.

[linkin99]

Very well said Dave. I believe that things need to be more transparent regardless if there were more bidders competing to manage the .com registry. Seeing that the .com is the most valuable extension on the Internet, it's all too dangerous to have only one company allowed to have the right to manage this without giving anyone else a shot.

ICANN & Verisign have been in bed too long. How's that saying go....."absolute power corrupts absolutely". I understand that with increased costs in operations, comes increased pricing, but it bothers me that Verisign keeps getting the "golden septer" to handle the contract.