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Verisign has taken action against COVID-related domains

by — Policy & Law 4 Comments

Domain name registry has taken action against domain names based on law enforcement requests.

Photo of globe with a surgical mask held up with latex gloves and the words "covid-19"

Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN), the registry for .com and .net domain names, has taken action against some domain names related to COVID-19.

In a blog post yesterday, Verisign noted that its pilot program with the U.S. government to crack down on online opioid sales is not unprecedented:

The protocols and experiences of this opioid-specific pilot program can also translate to other fronts in our efforts against DNS abuse. For example, Verisign is already working with law enforcement to apply a similar framework to combat domain name abuse related to scams that seek to exploit the COVID-19 crisis.

I reached out to Verisign to see if it has taken action against any domains related to COVID-19. A company spokesperson wrote:

Without getting into specifics or disclosing confidential information, yes, we have received requests from law enforcement agencies to take action against Covid-19 related domains, and yes, we have taken action.

The question of which party — the host, the domain registrar, or the domain registry — should “remove” a site from the web is an unsettled debate. Verisign takes action based on valid court orders, but “trusted notifier” programs such as the opioid pilot program have led to consternation with free speech groups such as EFF.

Verisign gets domain search ranking patent

by — Policy & Law 0 Comments

Patent describes way to personalize domain search results.

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The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted patent number 10,693,837 (pdf) to Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) for System for and method of ranking domain names based on user properties.

The patent describes a way to use personal information about the registrant to personalize domain search results. From the patent:

Some embodiments provide novel approaches for ranking (e.g., sorting) domain names on a personalized basis. Such personalization may be specific to an individual user, such as a potential registrant. The domain names may be ranked according to a prediction of how interested the particular user might be in registering such names. Note that, because the rankings are personalized, two potential domain name registrants may be given different presentations/orderings of the same set of domain names.

In more detail, some embodiments employ machine learning techniques based on properties of the user, such as gender, hobbies, country of residence, etc., as well as properties of domain names, e.g., length, language, top-level domain, etc., as well as contextual properties, e.g., the potential forum of the sale. The rankings may take into account prior domain name purchasing behavior of individuals that are determined to be similar to the user. Such embodiments provide for more relevant names being more prominently presented to the potential registrant, thus increasing overall registrations for, e.g., a registrar.

I believe some registrars already do certain elements of this when presenting search results.

Verisign applied for the patent in 2017. The patent names Swapneel Sheth, Director of Research Engineering, and Andrew West, Principal Research Scientist, as inventors.

Verisign gets IDN suggestion patent

by — Policy & Law 0 Comments

Patent helps domain searchers find translations and transliterations.

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The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted patent number 10,686,750 (pdf) to Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) for Alternate character set domain name suggestion and registration using translation and transliteration.

The patent describes a way for searchers to enter a word and see both translations and transliterations of the word, and check their domain registration status.

This is applicable to internationalized domain names (IDN). An IDN is a domain name that includes at least one non-ASCII character. Many top level domain names allow people to register domain names in languages with non-ASCII character sets, such as Arabic, Japanese and Russian. These domains can be registered in .com, and Verisign now offers some transliterations of .com to the right of the dot. (A transliteration of .com is essentially something that makes the same sound as ‘com’ in the language.)

Verisign applied for the patent in 2017.

Domain stocks rebound with the market

by — Domain Registrars 5 Comments

Many domain name companies are faring well during the pandemic.

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On March 14, I wrote about how domain name stocks fared during the pandemic market crash up through the close on March 13. The market wasn’t done capitulating, but stocks have rebounded nicely since then. The NASDAQ is up 17% since I wrote that story, the Dow is up 4% and the S&P 8%. Still, all three of the indexes are off their 2020 highs.

No domain names stocks have returned to their high prices of earlier this year, but two are up for the year: Verisign and GoDaddy.

Here’s a look at how domain stocks have fared this year.

Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN): Verisign is up 10% for the year and is down just 2% from its high earlier this year. .Com has proven resilient in the face of the pandemic, even getting a lift from Covid-related registrations and businesses transitioning online. It doesn’t hurt that ICANN agreed to let it raise prices 7% a year for the next four years.

Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX): Shares in the company that owns Enom have dropped 16% from their peak on January 16 and are down 10% on the year. The price has rebounded 18% from when I published the earlier story.

GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY): Go Daddy-O! Shares have surged 37% since March 13 and are up 11% on the year. They are down just 4% from their 2020 high.

Endurance (NASDAQ: EIGI): Shares are down 48% on the year and 53% from their 2020 high but are up 7% from the close on March 13.

CentralNic (London AIM: CNIC): I hesitated to include CentralNic and the next two companies in this post. They are thinly traded so changes might not reflect the current market. But CentralNic’s shares are now even for the year and off just 4% from their high at the beginning of the year. The stock is up 27% since the last story.

MMX (London AIM: MMX): New top level domain operator MMX (Minds + Machines) has seen its stock fall 26% from its peak on February 7. It’s down 8% on the year and down 1% since the last story.

NameSilo (OTC: URLOF): Shares in this registrar are down 54% since January 9. The stock is down 50% on the year and has dropped a further 9% since March 13.

I do not own individual shares in publicly-traded domain name companies to avoid a conflict of interest. Mutual funds I own, including index funds, do hold some of these stocks.

Verisign shrugs off Covid-19 so far

by — Services 0 Comments

Revenue and earnings remain robust despite the pandemic.

Picture of stock ticker board with words "earnings announcement" below it

Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) reported first quarter earnings yesterday after the market closed.

The registry operator processed 10.0 million new .com and .net transactions during the quarter and the base of registered domains increased by 1.83 million. There were 160.7 million .com and .net domains registered at the end of Q1, including 147.3 million .com domains.

First quarter revenue was $313 million, up 2% from the same quarter in 2019.

Operating margin improved to 66.0%, up from 65.4% in Q1 2019.

Verisign still forecasts $1.25 billion to $1.265 billion revenue for the year but has narrowed its expected domain base growth to 2% to 3.75%, from 2.0% to 4.0%. It is being conservative due to the Covid-19 crisis and economic upheaval.

The company turned in $1.232 billion revenue in 2019.



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