VeriSign, the US company that controls the database for .com,
.net and .org domain names, has agreed a deal with the technical
co-ordination body of the internet to surrender control of .org
names by December 2002 and .net names by January 2006, according to
a report today by the on-line edition of the Wall Street
Journal.
The deal was made with the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN) which has control over the domain naming
system of the internet. In exchange for losing control of the two
top level domains (TLDs), VeriSign has been guaranteed control of
the .com domain (which accounts for 80% of registered domain names)
for the next six years and has been given a “presumption” that its
control will continue thereafter.
Network Solutions Inc. (NSI) had a monopoly on the three
publicly available TLDs until June 1999. In September 1999, the US
Department of Commerce and NSI entered into an agreement scheduled
to last four years, giving NSI control of the registry for the
.com, .net, and .org domains but authorising others to sell the
names. In June 2000, VeriSign bought NSI. Numerous domain name
registrars now sell .com, .org and .net domain names but VeriSign
still controls the master database and receives a percentage of
every sale.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the new agreement with
ICANN was motivated by VeriSign’s falling market share of domain
name sales. ICANN’s board will formally vote on the agreement by
1st April.
