Senator joins Congressman Nadler to question .com monopoly.
Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congressman Jerry Nadler sent letters to the Department of Justice and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) last week asking them to investigate the .com registry operator Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN).
The letters do not appear to be on Warren’s or Nadler’s websites, but Wired wrote a story about the communication.
Per Wired, the letters state:
VeriSign is exploiting its monopoly power to charge millions of users excessive prices for registering a .com top-level domain. VeriSign hasn’t changed or improved its services; it has simply raised prices because it holds a government-ensured monopoly.
Verisign commented to Wired:
We intend to respond to senator Warren and representative Nadler’s letter, which repeats inaccuracies and misleading statements that have been aggressively promoted by a small, self-interested group of domain-name investors for years,” said Verisign spokesperson David McGuire in a statement to WIRED. “We look forward to correcting the record and working with policymakers toward real solutions that benefit internet users.
This response is similar to Verisign’s response to the NTIA after it questioned pricing. It claims the real culprits of pricing are registrars and domain investors.
Verisign is currently working through a process for a six-year extension of its contract to operate .com.
Warren has previously weighed in on domain name issues. She was among those lawmakers who called for a private equity takeover of .org domains to be quashed, which it eventually was.
Donald Trump’s first administration lifted prices on .com domain names, which makes it unlikely that additional restrictions will be placed during the second administration, which starts in January.
Too little too late