Verisign has lost the right to increase .com prices

best-url · #1 2012-11-30, 10:11 PM

Verisign: .Com Contract Renewed For 6 Years With NO Automatic Price Increases

by Michael Berkens 2012 Nov. 30

引用:

In what domain holder have to consider a victory, Verisign, Inc. ( NASDAQ : VRSN ) was granted an six year renewal of the .Com registry but losses the ability to automatically raise prices.

Verisign’s current pricing of $7.85 per domain name registration will continue for the six-year term of the Agreement.

Under the current contract Verisign has to operate the registry which expires today they had the right to raise prices 7% in any 4 of the 6 years of its choice and in fact did elect to raise prices in 4 of 6 years.

The term of this contract is term commencing on Dec. 1, 2012 through Nov. 30, 2018

“Price increases are limited to circumstances based on the imposition of new Consensus Policy or extraordinary expenses related to security or stability threats, and now require Commerce Department prior approval.

Finally, pricing restrictions may be removed entirely if Verisign demonstrates to the Commerce Department’s satisfaction that market conditions no longer warrant such restrictions.”

You can listen to the live conference call and webcast at 8:30 Am EST.

All of the information on that is listed on our blog post of last night

Shares of Verisign are down almost 14% in pre-market trading current at $33.51 down $5.63

Verisign closed on Monday at $40 a share

Th only negative for domain holders in the announcement is the statement that ” pricing restrictions may be removed entirely if Verisign demonstrates to the Commerce Department’s satisfaction that market conditions no longer warrant such restrictions.”

Which could lead to varbile pricing domain by domain like to old .TV model with some domains having annual renewal fees into the $x,xxx or even $xxx,xxx per year.

thedomains.com

best-url · #2 2012-11-30, 10:17 PM

Breaking:
Verisign loses right to increase .com prices

引用:

Kevin Murphy, November 30, 2012, 13:11:37 (UTC), Domain Registries
Verisign has sensationally lost the right to increase .com prices under a new deal struck with the US Department of Commerce.

In a statement to the markets just now, the company announced that the .com contract approved by ICANN earlier this year has now also been approved by Commerce, but with no more price increases:

引用:

Verisign’s current pricing of $7.85 per domain name registration will continue for the six-year term of the Agreement. Second, Verisign no longer has the right to four price increases of up to seven percent over the six-year term.

The company will only be able to increase prices with prior Commerce approval in response to “extraordinary” circumstances such as a security problem, or when the competitive landscape changes.

For example, if .com loses its “market power”, pricing restrictions could be lifted entirely, subject to Commerce approval.

Similarly, if ICANN approves a Consensus Policy that changes Verisign’s cost structure, the company could apply for price-increasing powers.

The deal is a huge blow for Verisign’s shareholders, wiping tens — potentially hundreds — of millions of dollars from the company’s top line over the coming six years.

Its share price is sure to nose-dive today. It’s already trading down 15% before the New York markets open.

It’s also an embarrassment to ICANN, which seems to have demonstrated that it’s less capable of looking after the interests of registrants than the US government.

The company will hold a conference call shortly to discuss the news. We will update this post as the call progresses.

In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Verisign said the new pricing provisions came in Amendment 32 to its Cooperative Agreement with Commerce:

引用:

Amendment 32 provides that the Maximum Price (as defined in the 2012 .com Registry Agreement) of a .com domain name shall not exceed $7.85 for the term of the 2012 .com Registry Agreement, except that the Company is entitled to increase the Maximum Price of a .com domain name due to the imposition of any new Consensus Policy or documented extraordinary expense resulting from an attack or threat of attack on the Security or Stability of the DNS as described in the 2012 .com Registry Agreement, provided that the Company may not exercise such right unless the DOC provides prior written approval that the exercise of such right will serve the public interest, such approval not to be unreasonably withheld. Amendment 32 further provides that the Company shall be entitled at any time during the term of the 2012 . com Registry Agreement to seek to remove the pricing restrictions contained in the 2012 .com Registry Agreement if the Company demonstrates to the DOC that market conditions no longer warrant pricing restrictions in the 2012 .com Registry Agreement, as determined by the DOC. Amendment 32 also provides that the DOC’s approval of the 2012 .com Registry Agreement is not intended to confer federal antitrust immunity on the Company with respect to the 2012 .com Registry Agreement and extends the term of the Cooperative Agreement through November 30, 2018.

On the conference call, Verisign CEO Jim Bidzos said that the deal was in the best interests of the company. It still gives the company the presumptive right for renewal, he said.

Growth, he said, will come in future from an expansion of its .com installed base, new IDN gTLD variants, and providing back-end registry services to other new gTLDs.

“We’re still a growth company,” he said.

“We have a patent portfolio we haven’t really exploited,” he said, referring to about 200 patents granted and pending. “We think there’s a revenue opportunity there.”

Larry Strickling, assistant secretary at Commerce, said in a statement:

引用:

Consumers will benefit from Verisign’s removal of the automatic price increases. At the same time, the agreement protects the security and stability of the Internet by allowing Verisign to take cost-based price increases where justified.

domainincite.com

best-url · #3 2012-11-30, 11:39 PM

其實,
看到這新聞我還蠻高興的

另外,
未來四五年 .COM 的註冊/續用不調帳的話
對於新 TLD 域名的註冊多少會有些抑制的影響吧?!

best-url · #4 2012-11-30, 11:50 PM

New Verisign deal blocks .com price hikes

By David Goldman Nov. 30, 2012

引用:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Verisign, the operator of the .com domain name registry for the World Wide Web, will be forbidden from regularly raising registration prices over the next six years.

The company renewed its contract with the U.S. Commerce Department on Friday, but under the terms of the new deal, Verisign will not be able to continue its practice of frequently raising prices by as much as 7% -- something Verisign did in four out of the six years covered by its last deal. Currently, registration prices sit at $7.85 per year.

The Commerce Department will need to approve any price hikes on .com registration through 2018, which it only plans to do for "extraordinary expenses related to security or stability threats."

Shares of Verisign (VRSN) fell by 15% on the news.

Verisign has been operating the .com and .net top-level domain registries since 2000 under an agreement with the Domain Name System overseer, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. But Verisign's contract renewal was strongly opposed by the Internet Commerce Association, which represents website owners.

ICA claimed that Verisign's price hikes were arbitrary and not done out of economic necessity. The group pointed out that Verisign charges just $5.86 for the far less-used .net domain name, even though both domains use the same infrastructure and have similar operational costs.

Related story: Do Not Track is dying

The new Verisign contract is only a partial win for ICA. The organization was hoping to end Verisign's "monopoly" status.

The agreement also gives Verisign some wiggle room: The pricing restrictions could be removed if Verisign can prove to the Commerce Department that "market conditions no longer warrant such restrictions," according to the deal.

Verisign praised the new deal.

"This is an important event that provides certainty and sets a clear direction for the company," Jim Bidzos, Verisign's CEO, said in a prepared statement.
The market for services like Verisign's is growing fast. The largest-ever expansion of the Internet's naming system is in progress and will soon open the door to new domain names like .home, .inc, .blog, .book, .shop and .llc.

Separately, the global standards-setting Internet Society in June launched a new Internet Protocol standard called IPv6 that expanded the number of unique Internet addresses from 4.3 billion to 340 trillion trillion trillion.

Verisign said it is working to "meet the performance and scalability demands of .com" by upgrading its infrastructure to support IPv6 and other new specifications.

cnn.com

哈啦 · #5 2012-12-01, 12:03 AM

Mike Mann Just Saved Over $800,000 With Verisign’s No Rate Increase .Com Contract

有域名大戶因.com未能漲價而可能省了八十萬美金。這傢伙有三十三萬域名。

http://www.thedomains.com/2012/11/30...-com-contract/

best-url · #6 2012-12-01, 12:11 AM

引用:

作者: 哈啦

Mike Mann Just Saved Over $800,000 With Verisign’s No Rate Increase .Com Contract

有域名大戶因.com未能漲價而可能省了c。這傢伙有三十三萬域名。

http://www.thedomains.com/2012/11/30...-com-contract/

八十萬美金好像是四還是六年所能節省下來的費用?!