In an article by stock analysis site, Trefis, which bills itself as a site that “helps you understand how company’s products impact its stock price“, said today that VeriSign “is on the verge of losing an antitrust lawsuit filed by Coalition For ICANN Transparency (CFIT), a non-profit organization that represents website owners.”
“A CFIT victory would attract new players to the market, creating competition and forcing domain name prices down. While good for domain name owners, this scenario would pummel Verisign’s stock value.”
“”We estimate that the .com and .net registry business contributes around 55% of $36 Trefis price estimate for Verisign’s stock. Verisign’s average fee for domain name registration has increased from around $5.20 in 2006 to $6.40 in 2009. If Verisign maintains its monopoly position, we would expect the average registration fee to reach $8.50 by the end of the Trefis forecast period.””
“However, if VeriSign loses the case against the CFIT, competitors will enter the market and drive registration prices down.”
“There could be a downside of around 20% to the $36 Trefis price estimate for Verisign’s stock if domain registration prices remain constant rather than increasing as we forecast.”
Good news ahead for domain owners. If the CFIT case is successful Wall Street agrees that prices on domain registrations and renewals will have to come down.
cfit does some interesting analysis, but a lot of times I think they’re way off the mark. this is one of those cases. saying verisign is on the ‘verge of losing’ is silly given that they just lost an appeal. this case is long from over.
Andrew
I agree the case is far from over, but sometimes perception is reality and if the market deems the case as a loser it may give Verisign more the reason to settle it to the benefit of domainers
Andrew,
To be clear – the analysis does not originate with CFIT, and CFIT did not contribute to that third party analysis and statements.
🙂
Boy the market could sure use that now.
No company or Nation should have some kind of a monopoly position!!!
Let the free market runs the show, let the people decide….where is Obama to protect us?
I have to talk to my representatives about this and hopefully Congress will pass a law.
IMO the title should read:
CFIT Case Will “Pummel Verisign’s Stock Value” as Domain Names registration/renewal Prices Go Down.
John – whoops, I meant trellis not cfit
And by trellis I mean trefis. Stupid iPad spell checker.
Oops I guess they shouldn’t have sold their SSL division 😉
Chirag…
Right.. They should have done the right thing and taken care of this issue earlier.. They thought that they were untouchable.
@Bulls : Be careful about politicians involved in something they cannot possibly understand. They feel obliged to justify their paychecks by passing legislative regulation.
It is a very slipper slope. We have all seen the effects of having ignorant people with power getting their sausage fingers into the internet and ecommerce. These are the same pig-eyed, self-appointed experts trying to ‘tax the in’nernet’.
Asking where Obama is in protecting domainers is like asking a preschooler to perform lifesaving brain surgery on you.