ICANN is regarding to give Verisign its .com price increases

Verisign CEO’s comments suggest price increases are on the way.

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Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) held its quarterly investor call yesterday, and it seems that ICANN is regarding to give Verisign the price increases it wants for .com.

The U.S. Department of Commerce updated its agreement with Verisign last year, allowing it to raise .com prices by up to 7% in four of six years. Still, this is only if ICANN agrees to allow the increases.

On the investor call yesterday, Verisign CEO James Bidzos stated:

We believe these discussions with ICANN are nearly complete. While it will be inappropriate at this time to provide more details, I can say that we were satisfied with the results so far. As noted, this is an ICANN process and we expect that ahead of long ICANN will be publishing for public comment the documents we have been discussing.

Verisign won’t be satisfied without the full increases.

And while the updated contract will go out for public comment, ICANN is likely to ignore any comments opposed to the price increases. That’s what it did when it unilaterally decided to remove price caps on .org and .biz domain names.

ICANN states it wants to get out of the price-regulating business, so it’s logical to assume it will defer to the U.S. government on .com pricing.

Also on the wire