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More Verisign bitchiness as .com price rise revealed
Verisign is putting up the price of a .com domain again, and it clearly wishes it could raise it even more.
The registry said that it will increase the base annual wholesale fee by 71 cents from $10.26 to $10.97 effective November 1 this year.
That’s the maximum 7% hike it’s permitted to impose under its trilateral arrangement with ICANN and the US Department of Commerce.
It’s the first announced price increase in two years. That’s because its contract only allows rises in the last four out the six years of its duration.
The company has never failed to exercise its price-raising powers, but it did freeze its fees during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.
But it has also never failed in recent years to make catty comments suggesting a profound bitterness that its prices are regulated at all.
Announcing Verisign’s first-quarter financial results last week, CEO Jim Bidzos said:
The new $10.97 price that will become effective November 1 is the maximum price that we can charge registrars. The registrars, however, are entirely price unrestricted and can sell .com registrations at any retail price they choose, and those prices often differ significantly from the price we are limited to.
This apparent frustration has been a prominent mantra since the company negotiated the latest version of the .com contract, during which Joe Biden’s Commerce had evidently wanted lower pricing and Verisign had pushed back with a call for greater regulation in downstream pricing.
Current .com registrants will be able to lock in their current prices by renewing their names for up to 10 (in practice usually nine) years before the price hike takes effect.
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