NTIA announces renewal of cooperative agreement with VeriSign

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced Friday some context around the renewal of NTIA’s existing Cooperative Agreement with Verisign (VRSN), the registry operator for the .com Top Level Domain and a key player in the Internet’s infrastructure, especially given concerns about .com pricing. Verisign manages the .com registry-just as other organizations manage registries like .biz or .org – and serves as a wholesaler of .com domains. Registrars and domain name resellers in turn sell domain names directly to businesses and individuals. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers directly contracts with registries to operate Top Level Domains. ICANN maintains its own .com registry agreement with Verisign, which it renewed last week. “The security and stability of the Internet are paramount to our national interests. The provider of .com registry services handles more than 300 billion queries per day on average, in the face of numerous cyberthreats. Over the years, Verisign has demonstrated itself to be a responsible steward, consistently maintaining the reliability of .com. Their track record has enabled a robust Top Level Domain that millions of Americans and citizens worldwide depend on daily. At the same time, Verisign’s role as the .com registry does offer it significant power over wholesale pricing. The Agreement currently caps those prices at approximately $10 per domain per year, and would allow a 7% increase four out of the next six years. NTIA recognizes concerns about current pricing and believes a reduction in .com prices would be in the best interest of the public. We also recognize that prices at both the wholesale level and downstream, including prices charged by resellers and substantial markups by warehousers, need to be addressed. That said, both parties must agree to any changes in order for the Cooperative Agreement to be amended. Over the past several months, NTIA and Verisign have engaged in serious conversations, but, despite our best efforts, we have been unable to agree how wholesale .com pricing should change. Per its terms, the Cooperative Agreement will automatically renew and take effect on November 30, with its current requirements and existing price constraints in place. Given the importance of the Cooperative Agreement for the stability of the DNS, and the fact that NTIA does not have authority to set .com domain prices, we believe the continuation of the Agreement is in the public interest. NTIA will continue to look at pricing considerations and engage in oversight of the Cooperative Agreement to ensure that the Agreement fulfills its purpose to serve the public. The current terms do not permit any increases in wholesale .com prices until September 1, 2026, and we note that, absent the Agreement, higher prices would be possible, including during this period. We also note that the Cooperative Agreement continues to restrict Verisign from vertical integration for .com, meaning Verisign is not permitted to operate as a registrar for .com domains, a restriction that is not standard for other registries. Finally, we note that the Cooperative Agreement continues to provide that it “is not intended to confer federal antitrust immunity on Verisign.”