The American domain name market began to shake before the arrival of Donald Trump in the US presidential administration. The fact is that the company VeriSign, which manages the most popular domain on the Internet — .com, can continue to constantly raise prices. Over the weekend, she re-signed the corresponding agreement with the telecom administration, which allows her to do this.
The American domain name market began to shake before the arrival of Donald Trump in the US presidential administration. The fact is that the company VeriSign, which manages the most popular domain on the Internet — .com, can continue to constantly raise prices. Over the weekend, she re-signed the corresponding agreement with the telecom administration, which allows her to do this.
US Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Congressman Jerry Nadler of New York have already written a letter of concern about this situation. They have called on government authorities to investigate what they say is «predatory pricing» of .com web names.
The letter was sent to the Ministry of Justice and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NATI, a branch of the Ministry of Commerce). Two Democrats accuse VeriSign of abusing its market dominance to overcharge customers.
They recall that back in 2018, during the Donald Trump administration, NATI changed the terms of how much VeriSign can charge for .com domains. The company later raised prices by 30%, the letter claims. Although its services remain identical and can be provided by others much cheaper.
«VeriSign is using its monopoly power to charge millions of users exorbitant prices for .com TLD registrations,» the letter alleges.
The wholesale price for .com domains was frozen by the US government at $7.85 per year in 2012. It didn’t go up again until September 2021, with annual price increases of $8.39 in 2021, $8.97 in 2022, and $9.59 in 2023. The last increase occurred on September 1, 2024. The wholesale price increased to $10.26. Overall, Verisign has indeed increased its price by 31% over the past four years.
The .com domain was one of the first top-level domains when the domain name system was introduced for use on the Internet in January 1985. It was then not primarily intended for commercial purposes and was managed by the US Department of Defense.
The first domain in the .com zone appeared on March 15, 1985. It was registered in the American state of Massachusetts. It became the site of the company Symbolics Inc., which produces computers and software.
VeriSign, which was engaged in the development of cyber security products, began to dispose of the .com domain, having acquired the Network Solution company in 2002 for $21 billion. In fact, it was a long-time contractor of the US government, which signed a contract for domain maintenance back in 1991.
VeriSign was founded in 1995. The company acted as an organization that issues cryptographic certificates of digital identification. By the time the certification division was sold to Symantec in 2010, Verisign had issued more than 3,000,000 certificates in a variety of industries, from financial services to retail.
VeriSign is now the administrator of .com and .net. It does not sell domains to end users (this business was sold in 2003). Domain name registrars buy domains from it. Including Ukrainian ones. Registrars add their premium to the price and offer domains to end users.
Verisign also manages the .name and .cc domain name registries.
As of the third quarter of 2024, VeriSign serves 156.7 million names in the .com domain, as well as 12.9 million names in the .net domain. Statistics show that recently the number of registered domains is gradually decreasing. In the last quarter, they have decreased by 1.1 million.
Although the company’s income, on the contrary, is growing. So, in the third quarter of 2024, it amounted to $391 million, which is 3,8% more than in the same period a year ago.
VeriSign avoided new price restrictions on .com domains when it renewed its agreement with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration over the weekend, it was revealed.
«The administration said it did not have the authority to set prices for .com domains without both parties agreeing to any changes, and while it believed lowering .com prices would be in the public interest, conversations with VeriSign did not lead to an agreement that how the wholesale price of .com should change,» Citi Research analyst Yigal Arunyan said in a note to investors on Monday.
VeriSign, a company based in Reston, Virginia, provides domain name registration services and Internet infrastructure worldwide.
«The .com registry service provider processes an average of more than 300 billion requests per day despite multiple cyber threats,» the administration said, emphasizing the importance of the company’s work.
«Over the years, VeriSign has demonstrated itself as a responsible steward, consistently maintaining the reliability of .com,» the administration added.
«At the same time, VeriSign’s role as a .com registrar gives it significant power over wholesale pricing,» the administration states. «The agreement currently caps these prices at approximately $10 per domain per year and will allow for 7% increases for four of the next six years… Over the past several months, the administration and VeriSign have been in serious negotiations, but despite their best efforts, we have been unable to agree, how wholesale prices for .com should change,» the administration summarized.
In a comment to the American edition of Wired, Verisign’s press secretary David McGuire stated that the company intends to respond to the letter from Senator Warren and Representative Nadler, «which repeats inaccuracies and misleading statements that have been aggressively spread for years by a small group of domain name investors interested in their own interests».
Earlier in the corporate blog, VeriSign wrote that it is not a monopoly because there are 1,200 generic top-level domains managed by other organizations, including .org, .shop, .ai and .uk.
