The Super-Monopoly behind the Internet

It’s no secret that websites are a critical part of the digital economy, they’re at the center of any business’s online presence.

The domain registering and web design businesses are extremely crowded with big and well-capitalized companies fiercely competing for market share (i.e,- Google, GoDaddy, Wix, Weebly, Adobe, and many more). But behind closed doors, there is a company operating a monopoly on root nameservers like .com and .net. That company is VeriSign.

VeriSign doesn’t own the .com or .net, but they do, however, have a contract to operate an array of network and internet infrastructure for the non-profit ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). As long as they meet certain performance criteria they can automatically renew their contract in perpetuity. That’s where the super monopoly lies.

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