On 2006–02–28, ICANN “renewed” its deal with Verisign (NASDAQ:VRSN), basically delegating on them the running of the .COM hierarchy, by far the most valuable of the Internet’s name spaces. This new contract, yet to be approved  by the U.S. Department of Commerce, will expire in year 2012, but – like the previous contracts – gives VRSN the first right to renew… and that was one the reasons for a disputed meeting: registrars, like GoDaddy and Network Solutions strongly opposed.

For the consumer, the #1 problem is the accorded price increases of 7% per year, per domain, starting in 2007. This should hurt the registrars’ business and explains their strong opposing.

I read this on Yahoo: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/060301/icann_verisign.html?.v=6

GoDaddy.com’s newsletter (2006–03–03) also mentions this.