Why the price of .com domain did not increase?
The price of the .com domain remained unchanged for a long time, due to the regulation that came under the administration of President Barrack Obama, which was in agreement with the National Telecommunications and Information Office `s policies .(NTIA). At the end of 2018, the current administration of President Donald Trump in the new treaty abolished this regulation, allowing Verisign to agree to adjust the price of .com domains.
The agreement with NTIA is available here.
Who will benefit from the price increase?
On January 3, ICANN and Verisign agreed in line with the above-mentioned price deregulation that Verisign would increase the price of the .com domain by 7% per year. This price change will generate a profit towards Verisign of nearly $ 1 billion over the next 4 years. At the same time, Verisign undertook to pay ICANN $ 20 million to be paid gradually over the next 5 years, starting in 2021. These funds will be invested to support ICANN’s initiatives.
The agreement with ICANN is available here.
This is not a final amount because ICANN will receive additional money through a fee that Verisign will reimburse for the provision of its ConsoliDate service. So far, Verisign was not obliged to pay ICANN a fee of $ 0.25 for domains that have been prolonged by this service. It will now pay a fee corresponding to the pro-rata of $ 0.25 for each shifted day.
What is ConsoliDate?
It is a service where the domain holder can postpone the expiration date to a specific future day and unify the expiration dates for domains within their portfolio. Verisign provides this service for .COM and .NET domains. You can also find this service at Subreg.com under the link “Set another expiration day” under the expiration date on the details page of your domain.
Aligning the .com domain with other gTLDs.
Verisign’s new obligations also arise from the agreement, bringing .com closer to other gTLDs, thus changing the approach to combating abuse, fraud and intellectual property infringement – including trademark infringement. This will unify the .com domain rules with other gTLDs, where the 2012 RRA and PIC will be respected. This is mainly about prohibiting the registered name holder from distributing malware, running botnets, phishing, pharming, trademark or copyright infringement, etc. And the consequences for users will now be consistent with the other registries, so these activities can lead to suspension of domain name registration. The latest news is that Verisign will now provide access to zone files within the CZDS service.
The draft of the new contract between ICANN and Verisign is available here (pdf). The contract is also open for public comments until 14 February.
