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‘Fees for .com Should Be Decreasing, Not Rising’

BUSINESSWIRE – Network Solutions, the leading provider of Web solutions and pioneer of domain name registration, today joined other top registrars in urging the Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to approve a proposed agreement on the future of the .com domain registry operation only if certain changes are made.

ICANN’s staff recently revised the .com registry agreement and proposed settlement between ICANN and VeriSign. “Unfortunately, the changes do not go to the heart of the matter,” said the letter to ICANN’s Board, signed by Network Solutions and seven other registrars. “The agreement still harms the Internet community by allowing unjustified price increases in most future years at a time when fees for .com should be decreasing, not rising.”

The companies outlined critical changes that must be included in any final agreement, including: (1) Barring VeriSign from being able to raise .com registration fees by 7 percent annually without any cost-justification or review in four of the next six years; (2) Allowing a competitive rebid of the contract, which is not permitted under the current proposal. These safeguards are in place in ICANN’s contracts with all registry operators other than VeriSign. Without this safeguard, future competition in the .com registry will be foreclosed, forever.

The registrars, who represent about 25 million .com domain names under management, sent the letter on February 14 to ICANN Board Chairman Vinton Cerf and all 20 other Board members. The proposed settlement, for which an ICANN comment period closes February 20, requires approval from ICANN’s Board and the U.S. Department of Commerce.

“The final proposal, when approved by the ICANN Board, will have far-reaching consequences for the Internet community,” said Champ Mitchell, Chairman and CEO of Network Solutions. “Our goal is to ensure that a final agreement does not allow registry prices to increase without cost justification and without market-based checks and balances.”

The proposed agreement would settle pending litigation between ICANN and VeriSign, which solely operates the registry for the .com generic top level domain. Concerns raised by the letter include the proposal’s new version of a so-called “presumptive renewal” provision, which would deny competition when the contract ends in 2012. The proposal states this provision must be included in any subsequent agreement, virtually guaranteeing that VeriSign will hold the contract forever without a competitive bid process.

The future operation of the .com registry operation is particularly critical given that .com accounts for 75 percent of registered domain names in the United States. Between 2001 and 2005, the number of .com registrations increased from 24 million to 43 million.