Beating out four other applicants, VeriSign will administer the .net top-level Internet domain for another six years, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers announced June 9.
The announcement came three months after VeriSign got a tentative approval to continue running .net, which is good for about $20 million a year in revenue to the domain registrar.
VeriSign's incumbent deal was due to expire June 30. Under its new contract, VeriSign planned to cut the annual fee for a new .net registry to $4.25 from $6.
The .net domain holds 7 percent of all domain registrations compared to .com's 47 percent, VeriSign said. VeriSign also administers .com, and that contract is due for renewal in 2007 and is reportedly worth $200 million a year to the company now.
VeriSign became the .net administrator after buying Network Solutions in 2000.
