ICANN, Verisign strike deal to raise .COM prices

• Verisign is to get the right to raise the price of .COM domains by 7% per year, under a new contract with ICANN.
• There are a total of 359.8 million domain names and of them, 144 million are .COM.
• Within 10 years, .COM domains could cost approximately 70% more than the current wholesale price of $7.85.

(Karachi) In a recent move, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has made changes to its contract with Verisign, an American company that operates a diverse array of infrastructure network, to increase the wholesale price to registrars for .COM domains.

Verisign is to get the right to raise the price of .com domains by 7% per year, under a new contract with ICANN.

The move is being criticized by ICANN community and internet users as the initiative was taken without bringing it into their knowledge.

Despite ICANN’s repeated moves of striking such deals behind closed doors, Namecheap, a budget hosting provider with over 10 million domains, has decided to confront ICANN and raise voice against increase in prices that directly affects its customers and internet service.

It is expected that the recent changes in the .COM agreement will have a huge impact on internet than the previous action for .ORG, .INFO, and .BIZ domains, due to the dominance of .COM.  There are a total of 359.8 million domain names and of them, 144 million are .COM. The data shows that .COM comprises of 40% of the all the domain names.

The objective of creating the ICANN was to introduce competition between domain name registrars. However, the agreement has put ICANN in trouble as Verisign will be allowed to increase prices of .COM domains by 7% each year from 2020 to 2023.

As part of the contract, after a gap of two years, Verisign can increase prices by 7% annually during 2026 to 2029.

In view of the process, within 10 years, .COM domains could cost approximately 70% more than the current wholesale price of $7.85 and the price could jump to more than the anticipated.

Similarly, Verisign agreed to pay ICANN an additional $20 million over five years to support ICANN’s initiatives regarding the security and stability of the domain name system.

Besides, ICANN also had rules that the operator of a TLD could not operate a domain name registrar. The new contract will allow Verisign to operate its own registrar, except for selling .COM domain names itself.

Verisign’s registrar could also use its dominant position to charge higher prices to consumers, while at the same time raising registrar prices.