Web.com Acquires Network Solutions for $405 Million + Stock

http://www.elliotsblog.com/network-solutions-acquired-by-web-com-7651

by bhartzer • 15 years ago

27 8 15 years ago

mef• 15 years ago

Interesting history: VeriSign acquired Netsol for $21 Billion in 2000, and then sold them to Pivotal Equity Group in 2003, but did not include in that sale Netsol's role as the sole registry for .com/net/org TLDs. Today VeriSign's naming division is the company’s "largest and most significant business unit".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Solutions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VeriSign

techsupporter• 15 years ago

Minor nit: .org is run by Public Interest Registry and operated by Afilias. That TLD was removed from VeriSign's management in 2003 after VeriSign's contract expired.

http://www.internic.net/faqs/org-transition.html

wmf• 15 years ago

VeriSign was founded as the monopoly SSL CA, then they expanded by buying the monopoly .com registry. Now they're divesting any business units that aren't a monopoly (like the NetSol registrar part or the SSL part) because it brings down their profit margins.

maqr• 15 years ago

In case anyone is unaware, Web.com is a pretty evil company.

From my experience with them, their practice is to sign up businesses to build a website, but Web.com retains ownership of the domain name. They make it difficult and costly to move the domain away, as they're the true owners. When I last interacted with them, I believe the exit fee was something like $150 to have the domain the customer already thought they purchased be placed in the customer's name.

In that way, I suppose acquiring Network Solutions makes sense.

larrys• 15 years ago

Yes. I don't know about the $150 charge but I do know that Superpages which they work with does put the domain name in either their ownership or web.com's ownership.

jhamburger• 15 years ago

Ditto on interland (web.com). They basically hold your domain hostage, and force you to jump through so many phone customer support hoops so that most customers will just give up.

workwells• 15 years ago

additionally, web.com owns register.com, which is one of the most difficult and expensive registrars to work with. Quite a group, Interland, register.com, and now NetSol. Scary that unsuspecting soles will blindly fall for their advertising.

edwardy20• 15 years ago

How do they have enough money to do this? Web.com's (WWWW) market cap is only 236.51M according to Yahoo Finance.

Web.com Acquires Network Solutions for $405 Million + Stock

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