A body representing internet businesses has filed a lawsuit against ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and Verisign after ICANN effectively handed Verisign control of the .com domain forever.
The terms of an agreement between the two extended the control of the .com database from 2007 to 2012 with an automatic renewal of the deal thereafter unless Verisign becomes insolvent or somehow breaches the agreement in the meantime.
The World Association of Domain Name Developers, who have bought the lawsuit, maintain that Verisign will have a monopoly of the .com sector and that prices could well rise at twice the rate of inflation.
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