ICANN Wants to Let VeriSign Raise Prices on<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.Com Domains

VeriSign has released a "proposed agreement" with ICANN to amend their exclusive .com registry agreement to allow them to raise the price of dotcom registrations up to 28% every six years.

Those new terms "are now open to public comment" -- and the Register points out that ICANN's decision seems to come with a corresponding $20 million for ICANN:

Operator of the dot-com registry, Verisign, has decided to pay DNS overseer ICANN $4 million a year for the next five years in order to "educate the wider ICANN community about security threats."

Even though the generous $20 million donation has nothing to do with ICANN signing off on an extension of the dot-com contract until 2024, the "binding letter of intent" [PDF] stating the exact amount of funding will be appended to the registry agreement that Verisign has with ICANN to run the dot-com registry.

That extension lifts a price freeze put in place several years ago and will allow Verisign to increase prices by seven per cent a year [in each of the last four years of each six year contract renewal]. It's an increase that we calculated was worth $993 million and which the stock market appeared to agree with when it raised the company's share price by 16 per cent when the agreement was first flagged in November 2018...

ICANN explains the $20 million this time will be used to "support ICANN's initiatives to preserve and enhance the security, stability and resiliency of the DNS, including root server system governance, mitigation of DNS security threats, promotion and/or facilitation of DNSSEC deployment, the mitigation of name collisions, and research into the operation of the DNS."

Which is all entirely above board and not at all shady.