ICANN Awards NeuStar Control Over .biz Registry Until 2012ICANN Awards NeuStar Control Over .biz Registry Until 2012

NeuStar has renegotiated an agreement with the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers to keep control over the .biz global top-level domain.

The agreement, NeuStar said on Wednesday, calls for it to maintain operational and administrative control of .biz through 2012. The new contract sailed through negotiations relatively smoothly and lacked the controversy of NeuStar's original effort to obtain control of the domain when the country of Belize protested that the .biz domain was too close to its Web address of .bz. The new agreement gives NeuStar control over the domain for an initial six-year term with what the firm calls "the inclusion of a presumptive renewal clause" similar to ICANN's .com and .net agreements. The .biz agreement also gives NeuStar leeway to raise prices of not more than 10% a year, as long as domain registrants are informed of planned increases six months in advance.