Brief: GoDaddy Escalates Domain Registration Protest

In an attempt to block a new agreement between VeriSign and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names (ICANN), domain name registrar GoDaddy.com has appealed to the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) asking that the agreement be rejected.

GoDaddy said Monday that it has urged DOC Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez to reject the agreement that ICANN and VeriSign had recently hammered out. The deal calls for VeriSign to get control of the .COM registry.

"This deal would give VeriSign a monopoly in the .COM registry," said Bob Parsons, CEO and founder of GoDaddy, in a statement. "The .COM price should be going down, not up."

ICANN itself was split on its decision to work out an agreement with VeriSign, but most of its directors said the new agreement is fair and equitable.