CFIT settles with VeriSign for $0.
Hopes by domainers that .com prices would fall thanks to an antitrust lawsuit have officially been dashed.
VeriSign just released a press release stating that Coalition for ICANN Transparency has agreed to drop a case against it.
The lawsuit attacked both VeriSign’s no-bid contract with ICANN that allowed it to raise prices 7% a year as well as its planned domain waitlisting service.
Although ultimately CFIT lost, I suspect their biggest concern was not the rising cost of dot coms but the waitlist service. CFIT was backed by Pool.com, which was one of the biggest domain backordering services when the case was originally filed. VeriSign’s proposed service would have effectively killed its business dropcatching .com domains.
VeriSign’s stock price has reacted strongly to developments in this case in the past. This announcement was released after the bell and the stock has not changed in after hours trading.
(via DomainIncite)
Justin says
Nice to see Verisign win this case.
Karl Jackson says
What is one to expect. Inflation is a fact of life and some items such as .coms cannot help but continue to rise when there is only one unique domain at a time.
Elephants are People Too says
@Karl…..what are you smoking my friend?
It has been shown it only costs a couple dollars or so per domain for them to be very profitable.
So Andrew….you are saying that VeriSign will go ahead with the wait list?
Andrew Allemann says
@ Elephant are people – no, the waitlist was something VeriSign wanted in its last contract. It didn’t materialize.
stewart says
‘ele’ is right, theres no costs involved here that werent there before, this is more about more, than anything else I say.
Anon Emouse says
It’s a MONOPOLY. A 7% GUARANTEED INCREASE – that’s AT THE TOP of the “cost of living” increase that MANY PEOPLE DO NOT GET.