Verisign, the company that manages gTLD .COM, has come under fire in the United States in recent weeks. Several advocacy groups have accused it of overcharging and have demanded that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) not renew its Cooperative Agreement with Verisign and put the right to manage .COM out to open competition. Moreover, several members of the US House of Representatives have raised the same issues, albeit in a more lenient form, in their letter to the NTIA.
In their responses, Verisign representatives pointed out the critics’ mistakes and accused them of misunderstanding the mechanism for managing .COM (it is indeed complex and is based on the interaction of three parties: NTIA, Verisign, and ICANN). To cut a long story short, the company demonstrated complete self-confidence and the invulnerability of its positions. However, Verisign is clearly concerned about the emerging negative public opinion and is trying to change the situation. This is evidenced, in particular, by the appearance of an article by Verisign Senior Vice President Pat Kane in the company's blog.
The article is structured as a list of "myths" about Verisign with their subsequent debunking. But, as the Domain Name Wire notes, reporting this news, Pat Kane himself is largely involved in myth-making. As "myths", he cites not real claims against the company, but their very free interpretation. For example, he claims that the company is criticized for spending a significant portion of its profits on buying back shares from minority shareholders instead of investing in the development of technical infrastructure. But no one makes such claims; everyone admits that there are no problems with the technical infrastructure of .COM. The problem is that the company, constantly raising prices, receives more and more profit and seeks to get its hands on an increasing number of its own shares, turning into a kind of "thing in itself".
Even more characteristic is the distortion of the critics' main complaint against Verisign. Kane calls it a myth that the $10.26 price tag - which will be the wholesale price for .COM registrations starting in September - is significantly higher than the market price. It is a myth, but no one is claiming it. The fact is that there is more than one company that would offer a lower registration price if it were given the right to manage the domain zone. But the Verisign vice president prefers not to mention this.
