December 1, 2006 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Intelligent infrastructure provider VeriSign (verisign.com) announced on Friday it has received notification from the Department of Commerce that it approved the .com agreement submitted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (icann.org), enabling it to continue running the lucrative .com Internet registry through 2012.
The announcement comes a little more than a year after it reached an initial deal with ICANN to maintain control of the ".com" Internet domain until 2012 in exchange for dropping an antitrust lawsuit against the nonprofit organization. That agreement settled a long-running dispute between ICANN and countries around the world, who wanted more direct control over the domain name system that drives traffic around the Internet.
The Commerce Department approved the final deal that was reached last February between Verisign and ICANN, which allows the company to raise prices in four of the six years of the contract, says Verisign spokesman Tom Galvin.
"The registry operator framework ICANN has adopted and embodied in the .com agreement strengthens the security and stability of the Internet relied on by hundreds of millions of people around the globe," says Mark McLaughlin, executive VP and GM of VeriSign. "This framework holds operators accountable for their performance, promotes the continued investment of tens of millions of dollars in the infrastructure and provides important safeguards for consumers."
