Network Solutions Purchased
Domain registrar Network Solutions has been purchased by a private equity firm.
Private equity firm General Atlantic disclosed that it is acquiring domain registrar Network Solutions from Najafi Firms (formerly Pivotal Private Equity). Since this is a private equity deal you ought to not expect major changes to the operations of Network Solutions (as compared to an buyout by a competitor). As stated by TechCrunch, rumors are swirling that the deal is worth $800M.
Network Solutions was the first domain registrar and had a lock on the market for many years. Until fresh registrars like Dotster entered the market upon deregulation, Network Solutions was the only option for registering domain names. The standard registration fee was $70 for two years. This price made it difficult to register many domains for speculative purposes. Network Solutions was part of VeriSign until it was spun off in 2003.
Although Network Solutions has now been dwarfed by discount registrars such as leader GoDaddy, it does have one nice market: expiring domains. Since good generic domains were mostly registered during the mid-90s they were all registered at Network Solutions. Thus, most good generic domains that expire are from Network Solutions. With its agreement with SnapNames, Network Solutions is able to auction these domains, sometimes for over $100,000.
