November 22, 2024

Warren, Nadler Urge Regulators To Take Action on Verisign’s Monopoly Over .Com Website Prices

Verisign has government-sanctioned monopoly on .com registry

Trump-era contract signed by NTIA and DOJ has allowed Verisign to raise prices by over 30% since 2018

Text of Letter (PDF)

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) wrote to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and Department of Justice, urging them to protect millions of .com website owners, including small businesses, by ensuring competition in the top-level domain (TLD) market. 

Right now, Verisign has exclusive control over the .com TLD, the last segment of a website’s domain name, such as .com, .net, or .org. The .com TLD is used by 150 million websites, nearly half of all global websites, and every registered website that uses .com must pay an annual fee to Verisign. As a result, Verisign can squeeze customers and raise prices excessively. 

This problem only got worse under the Trump administration. During Trump's first term, NTIA eased preexisting restrictions on Verisign’s price hikes, and since then Verisign has raised the price of its annual registration fee by more than 30% – while doing little to change or improve its services. Verisign uses this profit to buy back stocks, authorizing stock buybacks worth over 75 percent of the Company’s total revenue for 2023.

“Verisign has squeezed customers to enrich its investors while doing little to improve service,” wrote the lawmakers. “Verisign is ripping off the owners of 150 million .com websites by charging over $10 annually for each .com registration, making over $1 billion with its predatory pricing scheme that the Company then uses to pad its shareholders’ pockets.”

Verisign’s monopoly over the .com TLD is made possible by two agreements Verisign has – one of which lapses later this month. The first, a “Registry Agreement” with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), makes Verisign the “sole operator” of the .com TLD. The second, a “Cooperative Agreement” with NTIA, governs the fees that Verisign charges customers for .com registrations.  

The Department of Commerce (which houses NTIA) is set to renew the Cooperative Agreement on November 30, 2024. Ahead of that deadline, Senator Warren and Representative Nadler are urging NTIA to investigate pricing of the .com domain and whether it is in the best interest of consumers to refrain from renewing the contract with Verisign in the future. They are also asking the Department of Justice to consider whether the Registry Agreement gives Verisign monopoly power in violation of the Sherman Act.

Senator Warren has long fought to crack down on corporate consolidation that threatens consumers and raises prices: 

  • In November 2024, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal sent two letters regarding the impact of private equity and large corporations in veterinary care, to JAB Holding Company (JAB) and to Mars Petcare (Mars), a subsidiary of Mars, Inc., respectively.

  • In October 2024, Senator Elizabeth Warren led the reintroduction of the Stop Wall Street Looting Act, comprehensive legislation to fundamentally reform the private equity industry and level the playing field by forcing private investment firms to take responsibility for the outcomes of companies they take over, empowering workers and protecting investors. 

  • In July 2024, Senators Warren, Klobuchar, Murphy, Sanders, Booker, and Blumenthal wrote a letter to the Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission, urging them to scrutinize T-Mobile’s proposed acquisition of UScellular.

  • In July 2024, Senator Warren and Representatives Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and John Garamendi (D-Calif.) urged the Department of Defense (DoD), FTC, and DOJ to review TransDigm Group Inc.’s acquisitions of two specialized aerospace contractors to prevent price gouging.

  • In June 2024, Senator Warren wrote to the DOJ, FTC, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), calling out high health care costs due to vertically-integrated insurers, private equity companies, and pharmaceutical companies that are driving health care consolidation.

  • In June 2024, Senators Warren and Markey (D-Mass.) introduced the Corporate Crimes Against Health Care Act of 2024 to root out corporate greed and private equity abuse in the health care system.

  • In May 2024, chairing a hearing of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Subcommittee on Economic Policy, Senator Warren highlighted the impact of concentration in the food industry and its impact on prices, product, and consumer choice.

  • In May 2024, Senator Warren and Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced the bipartisan Airport Gate Competition Act, which would increase competition in the airline industry and lower prices for consumers by increasing the number of common use gates in airports.

  • In March 2024, Senator Warren and Representative Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Penn.) led a group of 14 lawmakers in urging the FTC to revive enforcement of the Robinson Patman Act, a critical tool to promote fair competition in the food industry.

  • In March 2024, Senators Warren and Klobuchar led 26 lawmakers in urging the leadership of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees urging them to strike parts of the Commerce, Science, and Justice (CJS) appropriations bill that undercut DOJ’s ability to block anticompetitive mergers.

  • In February 2024, Senator Warren urged FTC to closely scrutinize Choice Hotels’ attempted hostile takeover of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, which would further consolidate the hotel market and create the largest branded hotel chain in the United States.

  • In February 2024, Senator Warren delivered the keynote address at RemedyFest, where she called out Big Tech for their anti-competitive tactics that have led to market consolidation and record profits.

  • In February 2024, Senator Warren and 12 other lawmakers called on regulators to block the Capital One-Discover Merger.

  • In December 2023, Senator Warren led 6 senators in a letter to Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu, calling on OCC to allow states to move forward with their efforts to protect consumers from harmful bank practices. The senators criticized the OCC for overstepping its preemption authority under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which the agency is abusing to block tough, state-level consumer protections.

  • In November 2023, Senators Warren and Blumenthal called out U.S. Anesthesia Partners’ (USAP) monopolistic business model and use of restrictive non-compete agreements that have reduced patients’ quality of care, increased prices, and suppressed workers’ wages.

  • In October 2023, Senator Warren and Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) urged DOJ and FTC to carefully scrutinize UnitedHealth Group’s pending acquisition of Amedisys; and urged the agencies to scrutinize similar deals, reject behavioral or structural remedies, and oppose any health care acquisition that would threaten competition, increase prices, and reduce quality of care.

  • In September 2023, Senator Warren and Representative Becca Balint (D-Vt.), along with a bicameral group of lawmakers, submitted a public comment to the FTC and DOJ in support of the agencies’ proposed merger guidelines, endorsing the agencies’ reading of antitrust law, praising the guidelines as necessary to prevent harm to workers, consumers, and small businesses.

  • In August 2023, chairing a hearing of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Subcommittee on Economic Policy, Senator Warren highlighted the need for regulators to implement the strongest version of bank merger review guidelines in order to ensure stability in the financial system. 

  • In June 2023, Senator Warren sent a letter to Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, Federal Deposit Investment Corporation (FDIC) Chairman Gruenberg, Acting Comptroller of the Currency Hsu, Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, urging regulators to promote greater competition in the banking sector by toughening their stances on bank mergers and strengthening bank merger review guidelines.

  • In May 2023, at a hearing of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, Senator Warren questioned Acting Comptroller Hsu on his decision to approve JPMorgan Chase’s purchase of First Republic Bank after its collapse. This merger allowed a large, poorly supervised bank to be swallowed by America’s largest bank, making it $200 billion larger than it was before.

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