Who runs “.com”?

In order for you to market your products, contact your customers, conduct marketing research, and keep track of your competition on the Web, you need to have a Web site and tools to maximize your internet sales.  If you have a Web site with “.com”, do you how it operates?

The U.S. Department of Commerce issues a contract to run a database of “.com” Internet domains.  Since early days (1990s) of the Web, the Department of Commerce selected VeriSign to run the database.  The current license to run the database is due to expire soon and the government will select a company to run the database for another six years very soon.  VeriSign is favored to win another contract to run the Internet domain registration.  They also have the contract to run the “.net” domain.

The Reston, Virginia based VeriSign generates bulk of its revenue from registration of “.com” Wed addresses.  They charge $7.85 for any new or renewal of “.com” Web addresses.  There are about 105 million “.com” Wed domains.  The “.net” Wed addresses that VeriSign also runs has about 15 million Wed addresses.  The combined “.com” and “.net” represent half of all Web domain names.