After 15-month long and sometimes controversial RFP process, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) awarded VeriSign the right to operate the .net domain registry six more years, writes the E-Commerce Times. Details of the contract must still be worked out, but VeriSign's application said the group would lower the domain registration fee to $4.25 per year from its current $6. It has operated .net since 2001; its existing contract expires at the end of the month.

Financial details were not disclosed. Analyst estimates that VeriSign earns around $25 million a year for operating the domain, which accounts for some $700 billion in worldwide e-commerce each year and serves up some three trillion page views annually, according to data from VeriSign. The contract award comes a year after the parties concluded an unpleasant dispute over VeriSign's SiteFinder, which redirected users who mistyped domain names to VeriSign-controlled sites. ICANN ordered the registrar to shut down the service.