Held by the House Committee on Small Business, opposing the proposed .com deal to prevent the damage to small businesses and consumers.

The decision by the House Committee on Small Business to hold a hearing yesterday into the proposed .com deal between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and VeriSign was 'another critical step' in preventing the damage the deal would do to small businesses and consumers, according to the Coalition for ICANN Transparency (CFIT).

"ICANN only agreed to this deal to settle VeriSign's litigation, and they have done it to the detriment of the broader Internet community," said John Berard, CFIT spokesperson. "This deal will only lead to higher priced 'lock-in' for consumers and market 'lock-out' for small business."

CFIT and other members of the Internet community including registrars, country code managers, at-large delegates, the business constituency and other registries, raised their objections to the deal, noted that, it was granted without public notice, 'Locks in' price increases adding over a billion dollars to the cost to small businesses and consumers without economic justification, allows the expansion of VeriSign's natural monopoly, grants permanent control of the .com database to VeriSign and 'Locks in' market differences between VeriSign-run and all other registries adding even more confusion to the market.

"It is our hope that the Committee will not be distracted by the claims from ICANN and VeriSign that this is all about stability and security. We do not object to VeriSign having the .com contract; we object to it having this specific contract," said Berard.

The proposed contact, to be put in place before the current contract expires in November 2007, would set prices for a seven year period at a level $750 million higher than the current contract and $1.5 billion higher than a contract competitively bid. According to CFIT, this 'tax' will be borne by consumers and will put uneven economic pressure on small-to-medium size registrars.