VeriSign
Encyclopedia
Verisign, Inc. is an American
company based in Dulles, Virginia
that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet
's thirteen root nameserver
s, the authoritative registry for the .com
, .net
, and .name
generic top-level domain
s and the .cc
and .tv
country-code top-level domains, and the back-end systems for the .jobs
, and .edu
top-level domain
s. Verisign also offers a range of security services, including managed DNS, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) mitigation and cyber-threat reporting
In 2010, Verisign sold its authentication business unit – which included SSL (secure socket layer), PKI (public key infrastructure
), Verisign Trust Seal, and Verisign Identity Protection (VIP) services – to Symantec
for $1.28 billion. The deal capped a multi-year effort by Verisign to narrow its focus to its core infrastructure and security business units.
Verisign's former CFO
Brian Robins announced in August 2010 that the company would move from its original domicile of Mountain View
, California
to Dulles
in Northern Virginia
by 2011 due to 95% of the company's business being on the East Coast
.
certification services business. The new company received licenses to key cryptographic patents held by RSA and a time limited non-compete agreement. The new company served as a certificate authority
(CA) and its initial mission was "providing trust for the Internet and Electronic Commerce
through our Digital Authentication services and products." Prior to selling its certificate business to Symantec
in 2010, Verisign had more than 3,000,000 certificates in operation for everything from military to financial services and retail applications, making it the largest CA behind the encryption
and authentication
on the Internet, which most people recognize as the small padlock icon in their Web browser when shopping online or logging into a secure website.
In 2000, Verisign acquired Network Solutions
, which operated the .com
, .net
and .org
gTLDs under agreements with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN
) and the United States Department of Commerce
. Those core registry functions formed the basis for Verisign’s naming division, which is now the company’s largest and most significant business unit. Verisign divested the Network Solutions retail (domain name registrar
) business in 2003, retaining the domain name registry
(wholesale) function as its core Internet addressing business.
For the year ended December 31, 2010, Verisign reported revenue of $681 million, up 10% from $616 million in 2009. Verisign operates two businesses, Naming Services, which encompasses the operation of top-level domains and critical Internet infrastructure, and Network Intelligence and Availabity (NIA) Services, which encompasses DDoS mitigation, managed DNS and threat intelligence.
and .net
. It is also the contracted registry operator for the .name
and .gov
top-level domains as well as the country code top-level domains .cc
(Cocos Islands
) and .tv
(Tuvalu
). In addition, Verisign is the primary technical subcontractor for the .edu
, and .jobs
top-level domains for their respective registry operators which are non-profit organizations; in this role Verisign maintains the zone file
s for these particular domains and host the domains from their domain servers. Registry operators are the "wholesalers" of Internet domain names, while domain name registrar
s act as the “retailers,” working directly with consumers to register a domain name address.
Verisign also operates two of the Internet’s 13 “root servers” which are identified by the letters A-M (Verisign operates the “A” and “J” root servers). The root servers form the top of the hierarchical Domain Name System that supports all Internet communication. Verisign also generates the globally recognized root zone file and is also responsible for processing changes to that file once they are ordered by ICANN
and approved by the US Department of Commerce. Changes to the root zone were originally distributed via the A root server, but now they are distributed to all 13 servers via a separate distribution system which Verisign maintains. Verisign is the only one of the 12 root server operators to operate more than one of the 13 root nameservers. The A and J root servers are "anycast
ed” and are no longer operated from any of the company's own datacenters as a means to increase redundancy and availability and mitigate the threat of a single point of failure.
, the former Sallie Mae headquarters, in 2010 and decided to purchase the building in September 2011. They have since terminated their lease of their current space in two buildings at Lakeside@Loudoun Technology Center. The company will complete its move by the end of November 2011. The new headquarters is located in the Reston Town Center
development which has become a major commercial and business hub for the region. In addition to its Reston headquarters, VeriSign owns three data center properties. One at 22340 Dresden Street in Dulles, Virginia not far from its corporate headquarters (within the large Broad Run Technology Park), one at 21 Boulden Circle in New Castle, Delaware, and a third in Fribourg, Switzerland. Their three data centers are mirrored so that a disaster at one data center has a minimal impact on operations. VeriSign also leases an office suite in downtown Washington DC on K street where its government relations office is located. It also has leased server space in numerous internet data centers around the world where the DNS constellation resolution sites are located, mostly at major internet peering facilities. One such facility is at the Equinix
Ashburn Datacenter in Ashburn, Virginia
, one of the world's largest datacenters and internet transit hubs.
In September 2003, Verisign introduced a service called Site Finder
, which redirected Web browsers to a search service when users attempted to go to nonexistent .com
or .net
domain names. ICANN
asserted that Verisign had overstepped the terms of its contract with the U.S. Department of Commerce
, which in essence grants Verisign the right to operate the DNS
for .com and .net, and Verisign shut down the service. Subsequently, Verisign filed a lawsuit against ICANN in February 2004, seeking to gain clarity over what services it could offer in the context of its contract with ICANN. The claim was moved from federal to California state court in August 2004. In late 2005 Verisign and ICANN announced a proposed settlement which defined a process for the introduction of new registry services in the .com registry. The documents concerning these settlements are available at ICANN.org. The ICANN comments mailing list archive documents some of the criticisms that have been raised regarding the settlement. Additionally Verisign was involved in the sex.com
matter decided by the Ninth circuit.
In keeping with ICANN’s charter to introduce competition to the domain name marketplace, Verisign agreed to give up its operation of .org top-level domain in 2003 in exchange for a continuation of its contract to operate .com, which, at the time had more than 34 million registered addresses. In mid-2005, the existing contract for the operation of .net expired and five companies, including Verisign, bid for management of it. Verisign's bid was backed by numerous IT and telecom heavyweights including Microsoft, IBM, Sun Microsystems, MCI and others, which all asserted that Verisign had a perfect record operating .net. They proposed Verisign continue to manage the .net DNS due to its critical importance as the domain underlying numerous "backbone" network services. On June 8, 2005 ICANN announced that Verisign had been approved to operate .net until 2011. More information on the .net bidding process is available at ICANN
.
On November 29, 2010, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(U.S. ICE) issued seizure orders against 82 Web sites with .com Internet addresses that were reported to be involved in the illegal sale and distribution of counterfeit goods. As registry operator for .com, Verisign performed the required takedowns of the 82 sites under order from law enforcement. InformationWeek reported that "Verisign will say only that it received sealed court orders directing certain actions to be taken with respect to specific domain names." The removal of the 82 Websites was cited as an impetus for the launch of "the Dot-P2P Project" in order to create a decentralized DNS service without centralized registry operators. Following the disappearance of the Wikileaks
during the following week and its forced move to wikileaks.ch, a Swiss domain, the Electronic Frontier Foundation
warned of the dangers of having key pieces of Internet infrastructure such as DNS name translation under corporate control.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
company based in Dulles, Virginia
Dulles, Virginia
Dulles, Virginia is an unincorporated area located in Loudoun County, Virginia, part of the Washington Metropolitan Area. The headquarters of Orbital Sciences Corporation, GeoEye, and ODIN technologies and the former headquarters of MCI Inc...
that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
's thirteen root nameserver
Root nameserver
A root name server is a name server for the Domain Name System's root zone. It directly answers requests for records in the root zone and answers other requests returning a list of the designated authoritative name servers for the appropriate top-level domain...
s, the authoritative registry for the .com
.com
The domain name com is a generic top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. Its name is derived from commercial, indicating its original intended purpose for domains registered by commercial organizations...
, .net
.net
The domain name net is a generic top-level domain used in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The name is derived from network, indicating its originally intended purpose for organizations involved in networking technologies, such as Internet service providers and other infrastructure companies...
, and .name
.name
The domain name "name" is a generic top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. It is intended for use by individuals for representation of their personal names, nicknames, screen names, pseudonyms, or other types of identification labels....
generic top-level domain
Top-level domain
A top-level domain is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in lower levels, it is the last part of the domain name, that is, the last label of a...
s and the .cc
.cc
.cc is the Internet country code top-level domain for Cocos Islands, an Australian territory. It is administered by VeriSign through a subsidiary company eNIC, which promotes it for international registration as "the next .com"; .cc was originally assigned in October 1997 to eNIC Corporation of...
and .tv
.tv
The domain name .tv is the Internet country code top-level domain for the islands of Tuvalu.Except for reserved names like com.tv, net.tv, org.tv and others, any person may register second-level domains in tv...
country-code top-level domains, and the back-end systems for the .jobs
.jobs
The domain name jobs is a sponsored top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. Indicated by its name, the domain is restricted to employment-related sites....
, and .edu
.edu
The domain name edu is a sponsored top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The "domain is intended for accredited post-secondary educational U.S. institutions" and this intention is strictly enforced....
top-level domain
Top-level domain
A top-level domain is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in lower levels, it is the last part of the domain name, that is, the last label of a...
s. Verisign also offers a range of security services, including managed DNS, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) mitigation and cyber-threat reporting
In 2010, Verisign sold its authentication business unit – which included SSL (secure socket layer), PKI (public key infrastructure
Public key infrastructure
Public Key Infrastructure is a set of hardware, software, people, policies, and procedures needed to create, manage, distribute, use, store, and revoke digital certificates. In cryptography, a PKI is an arrangement that binds public keys with respective user identities by means of a certificate...
), Verisign Trust Seal, and Verisign Identity Protection (VIP) services – to Symantec
Symantec
Symantec Corporation is the largest maker of security software for computers. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and is a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500 stock market index.-History:...
for $1.28 billion. The deal capped a multi-year effort by Verisign to narrow its focus to its core infrastructure and security business units.
Verisign's former CFO
Chief financial officer
The chief financial officer or Chief financial and operating officer is a corporate officer primarily responsible for managing the financial risks of the corporation. This officer is also responsible for financial planning and record-keeping, as well as financial reporting to higher management...
Brian Robins announced in August 2010 that the company would move from its original domicile of Mountain View
Mountain View, California
-Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
to Dulles
Dulles, Virginia
Dulles, Virginia is an unincorporated area located in Loudoun County, Virginia, part of the Washington Metropolitan Area. The headquarters of Orbital Sciences Corporation, GeoEye, and ODIN technologies and the former headquarters of MCI Inc...
in Northern Virginia
Northern Virginia
Northern Virginia consists of several counties and independent cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia, in a widespread region generally radiating southerly and westward from Washington, D.C...
by 2011 due to 95% of the company's business being on the East Coast
East Coast of the United States
The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...
.
History
Verisign was founded in 1995 as a spin-off of the RSA SecurityRSA Security
RSA, the security division of EMC Corporation, is headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, United States, and maintains offices in Australia, Ireland, Israel, the United Kingdom, Singapore, India, China, Hong Kong and Japan....
certification services business. The new company received licenses to key cryptographic patents held by RSA and a time limited non-compete agreement. The new company served as a certificate authority
Certificate authority
In cryptography, a certificate authority, or certification authority, is an entity that issues digital certificates. The digital certificate certifies the ownership of a public key by the named subject of the certificate...
(CA) and its initial mission was "providing trust for the Internet and Electronic Commerce
Electronic commerce
Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, eCommerce or e-comm, refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. However, the term may refer to more than just buying and selling products online...
through our Digital Authentication services and products." Prior to selling its certificate business to Symantec
Symantec
Symantec Corporation is the largest maker of security software for computers. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and is a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500 stock market index.-History:...
in 2010, Verisign had more than 3,000,000 certificates in operation for everything from military to financial services and retail applications, making it the largest CA behind the encryption
Encryption
In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information...
and authentication
Authentication
Authentication is the act of confirming the truth of an attribute of a datum or entity...
on the Internet, which most people recognize as the small padlock icon in their Web browser when shopping online or logging into a secure website.
In 2000, Verisign acquired Network Solutions
Network Solutions
Network Solutions, LLC is a technology company founded in 1979. The domain name registration business has become the most important division of the company. As of January 2009, Network Solutions managed more than 6.6 million domain names.-History:...
, which operated the .com
.com
The domain name com is a generic top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. Its name is derived from commercial, indicating its original intended purpose for domains registered by commercial organizations...
, .net
.net
The domain name net is a generic top-level domain used in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The name is derived from network, indicating its originally intended purpose for organizations involved in networking technologies, such as Internet service providers and other infrastructure companies...
and .org
.org
The domain name org is a generic top-level domain of the Domain Name System used in the Internet. The name is derived from organization....
gTLDs under agreements with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...
) and the United States Department of Commerce
United States Department of Commerce
The United States Department of Commerce is the Cabinet department of the United States government concerned with promoting economic growth. It was originally created as the United States Department of Commerce and Labor on February 14, 1903...
. Those core registry functions formed the basis for Verisign’s naming division, which is now the company’s largest and most significant business unit. Verisign divested the Network Solutions retail (domain name registrar
Domain name registrar
A domain name registrar is an organization or commercial entity, accredited by both ICANN and generic top-level domain registry to sell gTLDs and/or by a country code top-level domain registry to sell ccTLDs; to manage the reservation of Internet domain names in accordance with the guidelines of...
) business in 2003, retaining the domain name registry
Domain name registry
A domain name registry is a database of all domain names registered in a top-level domain. A registry operator, also called a network information center , is the part of the Domain Name System of the Internet that keeps the database of domain names, and generates the zone files which convert...
(wholesale) function as its core Internet addressing business.
For the year ended December 31, 2010, Verisign reported revenue of $681 million, up 10% from $616 million in 2009. Verisign operates two businesses, Naming Services, which encompasses the operation of top-level domains and critical Internet infrastructure, and Network Intelligence and Availabity (NIA) Services, which encompasses DDoS mitigation, managed DNS and threat intelligence.
Authentication sale
On August 9, 2010, Symantec completed its approximately $1.28 billion acquisition of Verisign's authentication business, including the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate Services, the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) Services, the Verisign Trust Services, the Verisign Identity Protection (VIP) Authentication Service, and the majority stake in Verisign Japan.DNS control
Verisign has a very important place in the Internet's DNS infrastructure. Verisign is the authoritative registry operator for two of the most important top-level domains, .com.com
The domain name com is a generic top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. Its name is derived from commercial, indicating its original intended purpose for domains registered by commercial organizations...
and .net
.net
The domain name net is a generic top-level domain used in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The name is derived from network, indicating its originally intended purpose for organizations involved in networking technologies, such as Internet service providers and other infrastructure companies...
. It is also the contracted registry operator for the .name
.name
The domain name "name" is a generic top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. It is intended for use by individuals for representation of their personal names, nicknames, screen names, pseudonyms, or other types of identification labels....
and .gov
.gov
The domain name gov is a sponsored top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The name is derived from government, indicating its restricted use by government entities in the United States. The gov domain is administered by the General Services Administration , an independent...
top-level domains as well as the country code top-level domains .cc
.cc
.cc is the Internet country code top-level domain for Cocos Islands, an Australian territory. It is administered by VeriSign through a subsidiary company eNIC, which promotes it for international registration as "the next .com"; .cc was originally assigned in October 1997 to eNIC Corporation of...
(Cocos Islands
Cocos (Keeling) Islands
The Territory of the Cocos Islands, also called Cocos Islands and Keeling Islands, is a territory of Australia, located in the Indian Ocean, southwest of Christmas Island and approximately midway between Australia and Sri Lanka....
) and .tv
.tv
The domain name .tv is the Internet country code top-level domain for the islands of Tuvalu.Except for reserved names like com.tv, net.tv, org.tv and others, any person may register second-level domains in tv...
(Tuvalu
Tuvalu
Tuvalu , formerly known as the Ellice Islands, is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia. Its nearest neighbours are Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa and Fiji. It comprises four reef islands and five true atolls...
). In addition, Verisign is the primary technical subcontractor for the .edu
.edu
The domain name edu is a sponsored top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The "domain is intended for accredited post-secondary educational U.S. institutions" and this intention is strictly enforced....
, and .jobs
.jobs
The domain name jobs is a sponsored top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. Indicated by its name, the domain is restricted to employment-related sites....
top-level domains for their respective registry operators which are non-profit organizations; in this role Verisign maintains the zone file
Zone file
A Domain Name System zone file is a text file that describes a DNS zone. A DNS zone is a subset, often a single domain, of the hierarchical domain name structure of the DNS. The zone file contains mappings between domain names and IP addresses and other resources, organized in the form of text...
s for these particular domains and host the domains from their domain servers. Registry operators are the "wholesalers" of Internet domain names, while domain name registrar
Domain name registrar
A domain name registrar is an organization or commercial entity, accredited by both ICANN and generic top-level domain registry to sell gTLDs and/or by a country code top-level domain registry to sell ccTLDs; to manage the reservation of Internet domain names in accordance with the guidelines of...
s act as the “retailers,” working directly with consumers to register a domain name address.
Verisign also operates two of the Internet’s 13 “root servers” which are identified by the letters A-M (Verisign operates the “A” and “J” root servers). The root servers form the top of the hierarchical Domain Name System that supports all Internet communication. Verisign also generates the globally recognized root zone file and is also responsible for processing changes to that file once they are ordered by ICANN
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...
and approved by the US Department of Commerce. Changes to the root zone were originally distributed via the A root server, but now they are distributed to all 13 servers via a separate distribution system which Verisign maintains. Verisign is the only one of the 12 root server operators to operate more than one of the 13 root nameservers. The A and J root servers are "anycast
Anycast
Anycast is a network addressing and routing methodology in which datagrams from a single sender are routed to the topologically nearest node in a group of potential receivers all identified by the same destination address.-Addressing methodologies:...
ed” and are no longer operated from any of the company's own datacenters as a means to increase redundancy and availability and mitigate the threat of a single point of failure.
Company Properties
Following the sale of its authentication services division in 2010, VeriSign relocated from its former headquarters in Mountain View, California to the headquarters of the naming division in Sterling, Virginia (originally a Network Solutions facility). VeriSign began shopping that year for a new permanent home shortly after moving. They signed a lease for 12061 Bluemont Way in Reston, VirginiaReston, Virginia
Reston is a census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, within the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The population was 58,404, at the 2010 Census and 56,407 at the 2000 census...
, the former Sallie Mae headquarters, in 2010 and decided to purchase the building in September 2011. They have since terminated their lease of their current space in two buildings at Lakeside@Loudoun Technology Center. The company will complete its move by the end of November 2011. The new headquarters is located in the Reston Town Center
Reston Town Center
The Reston Town Center is a group of offices, stores, and restaurants in Reston, Virginia.-Layout:The Reston Town Center is designed with open avenues and with wide sidewalks. It is built around Fountain Square, a medium-sized open area between the surrounding shops. The main landmark in Fountain...
development which has become a major commercial and business hub for the region. In addition to its Reston headquarters, VeriSign owns three data center properties. One at 22340 Dresden Street in Dulles, Virginia not far from its corporate headquarters (within the large Broad Run Technology Park), one at 21 Boulden Circle in New Castle, Delaware, and a third in Fribourg, Switzerland. Their three data centers are mirrored so that a disaster at one data center has a minimal impact on operations. VeriSign also leases an office suite in downtown Washington DC on K street where its government relations office is located. It also has leased server space in numerous internet data centers around the world where the DNS constellation resolution sites are located, mostly at major internet peering facilities. One such facility is at the Equinix
Equinix
Equinix, Inc. is an American public corporation that provides carrier-neutral data centers and internet exchanges. Equinix provides network-neutral data centers and interconnection services...
Ashburn Datacenter in Ashburn, Virginia
Ashburn, Virginia
Ashburn, Virginia is a census-designated place located in Loudoun County, Virginia, northwest of Washington, D.C., and is part of the Washington Metropolitan Area...
, one of the world's largest datacenters and internet transit hubs.
Controversies
In 2002, Verisign was sued for domain slamming – transferring domains from other registrars to themselves by making the registrants believe they were merely renewing their domain name. Although they were found not to have broken the law, they were barred from suggesting that a domain was about to expire or claim that a transfer was actually a renewal.In September 2003, Verisign introduced a service called Site Finder
Site Finder
Site Finder was a wildcard DNS record for all .com and .net unregistered domain names, run by .com and .net top-level domain operator VeriSign between 15 September 2003 and 4 October 2003.-Site Finder:...
, which redirected Web browsers to a search service when users attempted to go to nonexistent .com
.com
The domain name com is a generic top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. Its name is derived from commercial, indicating its original intended purpose for domains registered by commercial organizations...
or .net
.net
The domain name net is a generic top-level domain used in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The name is derived from network, indicating its originally intended purpose for organizations involved in networking technologies, such as Internet service providers and other infrastructure companies...
domain names. ICANN
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...
asserted that Verisign had overstepped the terms of its contract with the U.S. Department of Commerce
United States Department of Commerce
The United States Department of Commerce is the Cabinet department of the United States government concerned with promoting economic growth. It was originally created as the United States Department of Commerce and Labor on February 14, 1903...
, which in essence grants Verisign the right to operate the DNS
Domain name system
The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...
for .com and .net, and Verisign shut down the service. Subsequently, Verisign filed a lawsuit against ICANN in February 2004, seeking to gain clarity over what services it could offer in the context of its contract with ICANN. The claim was moved from federal to California state court in August 2004. In late 2005 Verisign and ICANN announced a proposed settlement which defined a process for the introduction of new registry services in the .com registry. The documents concerning these settlements are available at ICANN.org. The ICANN comments mailing list archive documents some of the criticisms that have been raised regarding the settlement. Additionally Verisign was involved in the sex.com
Sex.com
Sex.com is an Internet domain name and web portal currently owned by Clover Holdings LTD. The domain name was the focus of one of the most publicized legal actions about ownership of domain names...
matter decided by the Ninth circuit.
In keeping with ICANN’s charter to introduce competition to the domain name marketplace, Verisign agreed to give up its operation of .org top-level domain in 2003 in exchange for a continuation of its contract to operate .com, which, at the time had more than 34 million registered addresses. In mid-2005, the existing contract for the operation of .net expired and five companies, including Verisign, bid for management of it. Verisign's bid was backed by numerous IT and telecom heavyweights including Microsoft, IBM, Sun Microsystems, MCI and others, which all asserted that Verisign had a perfect record operating .net. They proposed Verisign continue to manage the .net DNS due to its critical importance as the domain underlying numerous "backbone" network services. On June 8, 2005 ICANN announced that Verisign had been approved to operate .net until 2011. More information on the .net bidding process is available at ICANN
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...
.
On November 29, 2010, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Homeland Security , responsible for identifying, investigating, and dismantling vulnerabilities regarding the nation's border, economic, transportation, and infrastructure security...
(U.S. ICE) issued seizure orders against 82 Web sites with .com Internet addresses that were reported to be involved in the illegal sale and distribution of counterfeit goods. As registry operator for .com, Verisign performed the required takedowns of the 82 sites under order from law enforcement. InformationWeek reported that "Verisign will say only that it received sealed court orders directing certain actions to be taken with respect to specific domain names." The removal of the 82 Websites was cited as an impetus for the launch of "the Dot-P2P Project" in order to create a decentralized DNS service without centralized registry operators. Following the disappearance of the Wikileaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
during the following week and its forced move to wikileaks.ch, a Swiss domain, the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...
warned of the dangers of having key pieces of Internet infrastructure such as DNS name translation under corporate control.
Official websites
Websites now belonging to the certificate registry that was sold to Symantec
- VeriSign Authentication Services web site
- VeriSign Authentication Services UK web site
- SSL Information Center
- Extended Validation SSL Certificates FAQ
News and financial reports
- Oral history interview with James Bidzos Bidzos discusses his leadership of software security firm RSA SecurityRSA SecurityRSA, the security division of EMC Corporation, is headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, United States, and maintains offices in Australia, Ireland, Israel, the United Kingdom, Singapore, India, China, Hong Kong and Japan....
as it sought to commercialize encryption technology as well as his role in creating the RSA ConferenceRSA ConferenceThe RSA Conference is a cryptography and information security-related conference held annually in the San Francisco Bay Area.The RSA Conference started in 1991 as a forum for cryptographers to gather and share the latest knowledge and advancements in the area of Internet security...
and founding VeriSign. Oral history interview 2004, Mill Valley, California. Charles Babbage InstituteCharles Babbage InstituteThe Charles Babbage Institute is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing in the history of information technology, particularly the history since 1935 of digital computing, programming/software, and computer networking....
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis - Yahoo! - VeriSign, Inc. Company Profile
- Most recent VeriSign quarterly conference call transcript
- VeriSign Domain Report - Quarterly analysis of global domain name market
- Commentary on VeriSign's .com/.net Registry