ICANN and Verisign Announce Proposed Amendment to .COM Registry Agreement

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and VeriSign, Inc. (Verisign), the registry operator of the .COM top-level domain (TLD) today announced that they have reached a proposed agreement to amend the .COM Registry Agreement (RA). In addition, ICANN and Verisign announced a new proposed framework for working together on initiatives related to the security, stability and resiliency of the Domain Name System (DNS) in the form of a binding Letter of Intent (LOI) between the two organizations.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200103005209/en/

Together, these agreements fulfill commitments that ICANN and Verisign made in 2016 when they previously amended the .COM RA. The new terms, which are now open for public comment, will enhance the security, stability and resiliency of the DNS; provide limited and transparent pricing flexibility for .COM registry services; and standardize the .COM RA by including certain technical and reporting requirements based on terms in other registry agreements between ICANN and the registry operators of other TLDs.

Verisign’s operation of the .COM TLD is governed by two separate agreements: the .COM RA, and the Cooperative Agreement between Verisign and the U.S. Department of Commerce. In 2016, Verisign and ICANN formally agreed that if and when the Department of Commerce and Verisign made changes to the Cooperative Agreement, ICANN and Verisign would negotiate in good faith to ensure those changes were reflected in the .COM RA.

On Oct. 26, 2018, following a review and deliberation by the U.S. Government, Verisign and the Department of Commerce entered into an amendment that included an extension of the Cooperative Agreement.

Under the amended Cooperative Agreement, the Department of Commerce noted that the domain name marketplace had grown more dynamic and concluded that it was in the public interest that, among other things, Verisign and ICANN may agree to amend the .COM Registry Agreement to permit an increase to the price for .COM registry services, up to a maximum of 7 percent in each of the final four years of each six-year period (the first six-year period commenced on Oct. 26, 2018). The proposed agreement announced today updates the .COM RA to reflect those changes. ICANN is not a price regulator and defers to the Department of Commerce and the U.S. Department of Justice for the regulation of pricing for .COM registry services.