VeriSign Supports Fresh TLDs? Of Course it Does.

VeriSign states it supports fresh top level domains, which shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Chuck Gomes, VP of Policy and Compliance, Naming and Directory Services at VeriSign, wrote a post at CircleID regarding his firm’s support of fresh top level domain names. This really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone in the industry for many reasons:

1. Fresh top level domains won’t erode demand for .com, which VeriSign manages. .Com will remain king.

2. VeriSign will make money as a back end registry for fresh top level domains. Gomes makes this clear in his post:

For registries—like VeriSign—that offer backend services to other registries, the fresh domain round represents a significant business opportunity. VeriSign is by now in talks with a number of prospective operators of fresh domains and intends to engage actively in the emerging backend services market.

Gomes also states VeriSign is working to make sure that the applicant guidelines require TLD operators to have the financial wherewithal to ensure a successful rollout of fresh TLDs:

Given the importance of the registry function, it is also critical that fresh registries start from a position of financial stability and have clear mechanisms in place to protect registrants in the event of unforeseen events.

This, of course, plays to the favor of VeriSign since it has a big balance sheet.

One of the challenges VeriSign faces with fresh TLDs is that many other registry providers will undercut it on pricing. That’s since the true cost of running a registry like .com is less than a dollar a domain. But if it offers registry services for that little — like some of its competitors may — then people will call on it to lower .com prices (right now close to $7 per domain).

With .com registration growth slowing, VeriSign needs the short term lift of fresh top level domains.

3. Fresh TLDs may remove price caps from VeriSign’s management of .com and .net. Gome doesn’t mention this in his post, but I will.