Verisign

Verisign is a U.S. company headquartered in Reston ( Virginia).

It operates identification of the top - level domains. Com and. Net, two of the global root name servers, and provides general services for the safe operation of websites, for example, for defense against DDoS attacks at. Shares of Verisign traded on the NASDAQ since 1998 and the S & P 500 Index of the largest companies in United States.

History

Verisign was founded on 12 April 1995 as a subsidiary of RSA Security. Purpose of the company was to offer standardized services for two- factor authentication and identity management on the Internet. Until the turn of the millennium Verisign took over several companies, was in 1999 the purchase of the largest competitor Thawte. The brands of the acquired companies were retained in the subsequent period, as were Verisign example, to continue publishing under the name GeoTrust, RapidSSL and Co. SSL certificates.

Followed in 2000 by the acquisition of Network Solutions, which until a few months previously had a monopoly on the award of the popular top- level domains. Com,. Net and. Org had. The purchase was settled in a share exchange and had a volume of 21 billion U.S. dollars. The U.S. Department of Commerce and ICANN formally declared their consent to the adoption. While managing for. Already org beginning of 2003 to the Public Interest Registry and Network Solutions transferred itself to a private investor group was sold, Verisign retained the management of. Com and. Net. With this step by ICANN to 2010 always required separation between registry and registrar was formally carried out.

After Verisign with. Com and net. Had the two most popular generic top- level domains, and since 2001 through its subsidiary ENIC also. Cc was involved, the contracting authority of. Tv was also acquired for 45 million U.S. dollars in January 2002. Later Verisign bought also the London Global Name Registry, Ltd.. , Which is responsible for. Name.

In German-speaking Verisign became known primarily through the acquisition of Jamba: 2004 the Company to acquire the Berlin phone portal for 273 million U.S. dollars, which were partially paid in equity and cash explained. Subsequently, a cooperation with the News Corporation was agreed, which should strengthen the provision of content and under which 51 percent of the shares were sold to Jamba again. Years later, Verisign from the remaining 49 percent to the majority shareholder, and thus separated completely from this division, which Jamba, a subsidiary of Fox Mobile Entertainment was.

2005, the contract between ICANN to manage. Ran out of net, which is why Verisign had formally to a top -level domain for the first time apply. In addition to the Irish competitors Afilias, the. Operates info, as well as two smaller service also competed the German award DENIC for the continuation of. Net. Ultimately, Verisign sat but by all applicants and could. Net domain to continue until 2011.

In October of the same year Verisign and ICANN announced that they want their since the Site Finder affair (see review ) settle ongoing disputes about the exact responsibilities of each page amicably. The company should discuss all changes to its services as the awarding authority with ICANN, the management of. Com will be continued for another year without re- tendering in return. The agreement has been criticized by experts in the industry, but was ultimately accepted anyway.

In 2005 also the specialist in IT security iDefense was purchased, continued to expand its position in this segment with the Verisign. The company was specialized to recognize cyber attacks and vulnerabilities in systems of its customers at an early stage and to follow current developments in the hacker scene. The purchase price was 40 million U.S. dollars in cash, iDefense has been fully integrated into Verisign. Former products and services of the provider are provided below under the brand Verisign iDefense.

2010 announced Verisign to want to focus on business with domains and IT security, and therefore to sell the division for SSL encryption. Acquirer was Symantec for 1.28 billion U.S. dollars in the form of shares and cash, which wanted to merge the products by Verisign with its own services, such as the PGP Corporation. The reason for the takeover consistently falling prices for issuing SSL certificates were called.

The end of 2012 extended the contract for ICANN. Com and. Net with VeriSign, Inc. for more six years, but the company could not assert a claim for higher fees compared to Internet governance. First Verisign pleaded repeatedly for higher fees in order to ensure security and stability in the operation of top- level domains further. Despite the economic defeat a few months the U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett involved in Verisign, its holding company Berkshire Hathaway acquired a stake in the amount of 165 million U.S. dollars in the company.

Products

Verisign 's business is divided into two divisions Registry Services NIA and services as well as an area for the administration of the company ( Operations Infrastructure). In the first division all activities regarding the award of summary. Com, . Net. Cc-. - Tv and. Name- domains, as well as the operation of the technical infrastructure. Gov. , And jobs. Edu. In the NIA Services in turn the products and services of iDefense and a so-called Managed DNS, DDoS Protection Services summarizes all of which are associated with the IT security.

Due to the widespread use of. Com and. Net addresses Verisign is generally regarded as the most important contracting authority of domains. The company carries several events each year under the title registrar Days by that are commonly classified as industry meetings and significant influence on the development to have on the market. According to official figures VeriSign managed more than 125.9 million domain names in September 2013.

Criticism

In September 2003, Verisign was criticized after it with a redirect for all unregistered domains. Com and. Net set up on an in-house search engine had. This was realized by Wildcard at the level of the domain name system so that users worldwide could not handle it first. Organizations such as the Internet Software Consortium protested against this measure because they saw an impermissible interference with the infrastructure of the Internet in it. Later, the ICANN called for an adjustment of the automatic forwarding, whereupon Verisign the service finally gave up again.

With the introduction of internationalized domain names, the company came under renewed criticism after some particularly valuable domains automatically by RACE in the IDN standard convicted, so that they could be no longer registered by other interested parties. Experts and for example also DENIC assessed the behavior again as negative, especially since this principle first come, first serve will hurt. According to Verisign, ICANN had the conversion of RACE- domains in the IDN process, however, before officially approved.

As an awarding authority of the two most popular generic top- level domains. Com and. Net Verisign plays a special role in the industry. In the course of this, the company repeatedly accused of lack of transparency, particularly as regards the dissemination of certain domains in comparison to other top - level domains. To counter this allegation, Verisign began in July 2012 with the publication of an updated in real-time statistics. Next to the number of registered domains, which also includes extensive information about the zone file, eg there were not deposited dead domains. In addition, for some time a so-called Domain Name Industry regularly publishes letter.