Elizabeth Warren Calls for Crackdown on Internet ‘Monopoly’ You've Never Heard of

US legislator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and congressman Jerry Nadler of New York person called connected authorities bodies to analyse what they allege is the “predatory pricing” of .com web addresses, the Internet’s premier existent estate.

In a missive delivered contiguous to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), a subdivision of the Department of Commerce (DOC) that advises the US President, the 2 Democrats impeach VeriSign, the institution that administers the .com top-level domain, of abusing its marketplace dominance to overcharge customers.

In 2018, nether the Donald Trump administration, the NTIA modified the presumption on connected however overmuch VeriSign could complaint for .com domains. The institution has since hiked prices by 30 percent, the missive claims, though its work remains identical and could allegedly beryllium provided acold much cheaply by others.

“VeriSign is exploiting its monopoly powerfulness to complaint millions of users excessive prices for registering a .com top-level domain,” the missive claims. “VeriSign hasn’t changed oregon improved its services; it has simply raised prices due to the fact that it holds a government-ensured monopoly.”

VeriSign did not respond instantly to a petition for comment. But successful an August blog post entitled “Setting The Record Straight,” the institution claimed that sermon astir its absorption of .com had been “distorted by factual inaccuracies, a misunderstanding of halfway method concepts, and misinterpretations regarding pricing, competition, and marketplace dynamics successful the domain sanction industry.”

In the aforesaid blog post, the institution argues that it is not operating a monopoly due to the fact that determination are 1,200 generic apical level domains operated by different entities, including .org, .shop, .ai oregon .uk.

Though acold from a household name, VeriSign takes successful astir $1.5 cardinal successful revenue each twelvemonth for servicing its peculiar conception of the Internet’s inscrutable plumbing.

In their letter, Warren and Nadler allege that VeriSign has exploited its exclusive close to complaint for highly sought-after .com addresses to foodstuff its revenues and thrust up its stock price—all astatine the disbursal of customers for whom determination is nary viable alternative.

The missive claims that abstracted agreements with the NTIA and Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit established by the DOC to oversee the web’s domain sanction system, person allowed VeriSign to found monopoly power. The missive besides alleges VeriSign mightiness beryllium successful usurpation of the Sherman Act. The erstwhile sets however overmuch the institution tin complaint its customers for registering .com addresses, portion the second assigns VeriSign arsenic the “sole operator” of the .com domain.