The price of .com domains is going up in September.
.Com domain name registry Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) announced today that it will increase the wholesale price it charges registrars for .com registrations and renewals from $7.85 to $8.39. The price hike will go into effect on September 1, 2021.
It’s the first year Verisign has been able to increase prices for .com domain names under new agreements it struck with the U.S. government and ICANN.
The company is allowed to increase prices by 7% this year and then each of the next three years. This means wholesale prices will be $10.26 in four years, assuming it takes advantage of each price increase and has to round down each increase to the nearest penny. On the company’s investor conference call today, it stated that it has to round down to the nearest penny.
Domain name registrars are free to charge whatever price they want, but many of them offer bulk customers prices below $8.39, so customers will certainly see price increases later this year.
Let’s not forget the original source of 7% fee increase. Verisign used litigation to gain a completely new version of the .com Registry Agreement in 2006.
Under the previous registry agreement (2001), ICANN had the right to send the contract out for competitive bid if Verisign was in breach. ICANN also had the right to send the contract out for competitive bid if Verisign wanted to increase its fees. This was the mechanism to keep the monopoly in check.
But in 2005, ICANN was running out of money and was forced to settle, which allowed Verisign to obtain an entirely new version of its agreement. Verisign obtained the absolute right of renewal. Verisign was also allowed to increase its fees by 7% in 4 out of 6 years. In exchange ICANN received increased payments from Verisign. All language allowing for ICANN to call for competing proposals was removed from the 2006 agreement. Thus, ICANN and Verisign agreed to shut out competition forever. Despite one of ICANN’s missions is to promote competition.
A little history lesson for those who were not around to witness the events which occurred in the 2004 – 2006 time period.
There was an antitrust lawsuit on this matter which was settled early.
Never ending shame.
It is time for this contract to go out to tender. US govt must get tough with big tech monopolies.
Verisign is the government.
No good.
Biden administration will not allow this to happen when times get tough for businesses and individuals.
Instead of staying low profile with its record profits, Verisign just announced a monopoly price increase.
By doing this, Verisign just killed its cash cow by attracting the department of commerce’s attention who will now send the contract out for competitive bid.
I predict .COM wholesale price to be in the $3 to $4 in a near future !
Well done Verisign…
Let’s hope you are correct.
He most certainly is not. See my comments here: https://domaininvesting.com/verisign-to-increase-wholesale-price-of-com-to-8-39/#comments. And if by some chance the current administration does do anything for the time being, it will be for some cynical purpose, not any genuine concern for the American people.
I see that as just false hope. The coronahoax plan is to control demolition the global financial system – small business needs to be destroyed. If they (understand that the global banking mafia owns everything in the world including ICANN and verisign) can profit along the way with increased money grabs such as this price increase, why would they give that up?
But I do see (and kinda hope for) a large quantity of mediocre domains which have been held for a long time by domain investors to be dropping within the year after prices go up.
What proportion of Verisign’s revenues are from .com from their other gTLDs and from their services to other TLD registrars? Is this a device to get people to switch as they see the income from .com stagnating?
Just a thought regarding their motives. No statement that the move is good or bad, that’s another quedstion.
Almost all of it is from .com. .Net is a distant second for revenue. Services to other TLDs is trivial.
Hmm, sounds like a license to print money…
Tens of millions per year for doing next to nothing is not enough for good ol Verisign
This is why no company should be given an automatic right to renew.. com prices would be so much better if companies had to compete for the contract. I think thr US DOJ needs to extend their big tech monopoly probe to include Verisign!
not a good time to increase the price