Domain name companies spend hundreds of thousands lobbying politicians.
Domain name companies such as .com/.net registry VeriSign (NASDAQ: VRSN) and registrar GoDaddy are spending hundreds of thousands each year lobbying in Washington.
An AP story published today disclosed that VeriSign spent $570,000 in the first half of 2007 to lobby the U.S. federal government.
I searched the United States Senate’s records to find out which other domain related firms were busy in the capital.
GoDaddy’s last report, covering the last half of 2006, shows that it spent $280,000 during that period. Its total for 2006 was $460,000. GoDaddy has been active in Washington since late last year when it announced it had a “full-time presence” there (See GoDaddy Goes to Washington).
Register.com has a few disclosures from the early 2000s, but appears to have exited the lobbying business around that time (at least under the name of Register.com).
NueStar, the current registry for .us, spent about $80,000 the second half of 2006 in Washington. Its lobbying may be unsuccessful. NeuStar, which starting running .us in 2001, may lose out to the government soon. NueStar appears to have hired a new lobbyist this year. (Prior lobbying may be related to other business lines, not domain names).
The Internet Commerce Association, which was founded in part by iREIT and domain brokerage and parking company Sedo, spent $40,000 last year. Michael Collins, formerly with Afternic, is the association’s Executive Director. The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse, founded in part by large companies such as Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) and Eli Lily (NYSE: LLY) filed its lobbying registration statement on May 1 this year with the stated purpose of “Representation on intellectual property and Internet/technology issues related to domain names”.
You can expect lobbying dollars related to the domain name industry to increase rapidly over the coming years. The world is starting to recognize the value of domain names. The increased attention and growing value of the industry means big money is at stake. Organizations that can influence the legislative process will get a leg up in the battle.
Claude Gelinas says
Domain name lobbyists… that sounds like a promising “job title”!
In fact, many domainers with free time on their hands could probably be very good at this type of high-level political influence “game”.
Andrew says
domainnamelobbyist.com…it’s mine 🙂
But you might be able to get domainnamelobbyistS.com
Patrick McDermott says
Andrew,
Neustar is not going to “lose out to the government soon.”. I’ve seen this misunderstanding on several domain blogs that the US government is going to take over the .US namespace.
Since inception .US has been under government control via the Dept Of Commerce (DOC) and it’s subsidiary the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
Neustar was awarded the contract to manage .Us in 2001. That contract expires this October. That contract is up for bids so Neustar may lose out if they are not the winner.
See here: http://snipurl.com/FedBizOpp
See the relationship between Neustar, DOC
and NTIA here:
http://snipurl.com/DotUSManager
Now it gets interesting!
Thanks to DomainNameNews.com I learned that
“GoDaddy and Afilias created joint venture in order to bid for .US tld”.
It’s an interesting read:
http://snurl.com/allianceregistry
Patrick
Patrick McDermott says
Andrew,
Domain trivia…domainnamelobbyist.com was previously regged but expired August 11, 2006.
Patrick
Ramiro says
Andrew,
Lobbying is a lot of fun! As an attorney/lobbyist, I’ve enjoyed influencing the process, especially here in Texas. D.C. is probably a lot more fun.
Andrew says
Ramiro, now that the session is over let’s do lunch. Send an email to me.