[ga] WLS Press Release

["Mike Mann /BuyDomains.com" <mike@buydomains.com>]

Verisign's proposes anti-competitive Waiting List Service
WLS called a "sham" while domain hoarding continues in force


Herndon, VA, January 16th, 2002 -Verisign (http://www.verisign.com, NASDAQ: 
VRSN) is once again trying to exploit its monopoly status and drive its 
competitors out of business.  The Internet infrastructure gorilla, worth 
over $8.3 billion in today's market, announced its latest anti-competitive 
tactic called the Waiting List Service to control the secondary market for 
domains and force massive new costs on its small competitors.

For most of the Internet's history the government granted the former 
Network Solutions Inc. monopoly status in domain registrations. This policy 
was widely regarded as a failure since NSI did not meet basic service 
levels and simultaneously forced every domain consumer to pay onerous fees 
(usually $70-$119 per registration wherein the new competitive market 
offers the same for about $16 and provides enhanced service levels). Hence, 
the government tried to break the monopoly by separating the now Verisign 
Global Registry with its retail Registrar service. Unfortunately this new 
policy leaves a monopoly on the registry side wherein every new competitor 
still has to pay Verisign $6 for every registration to manage the central 
database. These $6 fees from competitors rake in a cool $180 million per 
year for Verisign.

Despite their monopoly power resulting in windfall profits, Verisign 
competitors have been making inroads in to the secondary domain market 
which includes expired domains. Versign is now asserting its monopoly power 
by announcing they want to charge $40 to every competitor who wants to 
register an expired name for their customer by getting on a Verisign 
controlled "waiting list". They say this is a way for them to save money on 
their technical systems yet they already get $180 million a year to run the 
database, they don't make basic improvements to the current system, and 
they will still be running the current system in parallel for any domains 
that aren't purchase via the WLS and expire naturally. Many new competitors 
who have invested heavily in the secondary domain market would likely fail 
if Verisign succeeds in instituting the WLS.

As you see the government has allowed the monopoly to charge $6 but 
Verisign is unilaterally trying to change it to $40 for a large portion of 
the registrations. They also seek to control who is assigned all of these 
millions of expiring names while currently its strictly first come first 
served. Since they control both their legacy registrar, with tens of 
millions of renewals per year, and the registry, which seeks to 
dramatically increase competitors fees and control all expiring domains, 
competition is stifled by an enormous conflict of interest.

Even more alarming is that they continue to hoard millions of domains with 
no legitimate claim. Most have expired many months if not years ago by 
companies that are no longer in business or just don't want to pay for a 
yearly renewal. By perpetuating the hoarding they prevent any competitor 
from registering one of these expired names for a new customer and 
simultaneously prevent a secondary market in these domains from taking 
root. All the while they try to push through the Waiting List Service and 
charge $40 instead of $6 for all the names that should have been available 
to the public long ago according to existing contracts with regulating 
agencies. Competitor Register.com (Nasdaq:RCOM) also hoards at least 
hundreds of thousands of expired names thereby helping stifle free market 
activity themselves.

Michael Mann who is the president of the leading secondary domain market, 
BuyDomains.com, flatly calls Verisign's anticompetitive efforts "a sham on 
all domain consumers and Verisign competitors". BuyDomains.com and dozens 
of other competitors are urging authorities to put a halt to what they 
consider to be outrageously anticompetitive behavior. Competitors want the 
expired domains to be deleted immediately thereby allowing the free market 
to flourish and for Verisign to rescind its WLS proposal.


Contact Michael F. Mann
301-530-9030
mike@buydomains.com



-Mike


Michael F. Mann
mike@buydomains.com
301-530-8040 fax: 301-530-9611

President, BuyDomains.com - The World's Leader in Virtual Real Estate. 
http://www.buydomains.com/

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