Lawsuit Against VeriSign for Anti-Competitive Pricing May Proceed

U.S. Court of Appeals Reverses Lower Court Decision

[Webwork]

U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rules that Coalition for ICANN Transparency, Inc.'s lawsuit against VeriSign, Inc. may proceed under Sherman "Antitrust" Act.

I haven't read the opinion word for word, but the gist of it is that VeriSign and ICANN engaged in a bit of cozy bargaining that resulted in VeriSign securing a virtual-perpetual lock on the .Com registry with locked in price increases.

In other words, if there was actual competition, instead of the cozy relationship between ICANN and VeriSign, there would be actual bidding for control of the .Com/.Net registries which, in all probability, have resulted in the lowering of costs - instead of the lock-step increases in fees.

To those who have registered more than a few .Com domains in the past this lawsuit may have 3 benefits. First, shattering the lock that VeriSign has on .Com. Second, opening the operation of the registry to competition which should drive down costs. Third, the real possibility that VeriSign would have to pay back millions of dollars of excessive charges.

Here's the pdf of the Court's decision [ca9.uscourts.gov].

[incrediBILL]

I've never really heard anyone serious about running an online business complain about the fact that the domain name was $35. Anyone running a serious business can easily absorb a higher domain price and those that aren't can use other TLDs instead of .com.

Personally, I think the price of .com's should be about $100/ea. Lower .com prices just make it more problematic for legit online businesses to avoid getting scalped <in the domain aftermarket>, it's bad for everyone.

[edited by: Webwork at 1:39 pm (utc) on June 8, 2009]

[Leosghost]

Bill when you were paying $35.00 per year we here were being told by ,our at that time monopoly telco ( France Telecom that the price was FR1200.00 per year at that time about $200.00 us and that we had to pay minimum 2 years up front ) they had a sweetheart deal with netsol/verisign they were the only allowed sales rep for France ..all approaches from here ( by mail or through the netsol site etc ) were referred by verisign to them ( France telecoms site)..same thing still applies to a lot of software for download from the US .we are referred to their "exclusive" French agents ..( any local aff who can speak rudimentary english and read help files to offer basic "support" in french ) at twice the price for an (paid by credit card) online download..( even if we want it in English ) 3d apps like maya are a case in point <but I digress>

I agree that prices are low ( although if the people at verisign can make money after all overheads at what $7.00 to $8.00 Us then that is actually what it' s worth ) ..to unlock domains for general use it's far more relevant to insist that Icaan stop "kiting" and "tasting" by "registrars" ..£50,000.00 downpayment to become a "registrar" ..to verisign and providing you "churn" n "drop" n "pick up" n "churn" again them within 3 working days means you never have to actually pay anything ( and if you are a "registrar" you can keep on doing this with the same names for ever ) but you can reap the adsense from parking ..

That is googles fault ..and as long as vince cern is at google and also effectively running the ICAAN ..then that kind of corrupt practice is going to continue to lock many dot coms away from those who could put them to constructive use .

I'd pay more per dot com ..but not if verisign are involved in fixing the price ..and I'd like the ICAAN cleansed of all those like Mr Cern whose interests are those of his employers not of the internet in general