Verisign and ICANN sued over .com renewal prices in antitrust class action

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes.

Key facts

What happened: A California man filed a proposed class action antitrust lawsuit against Verisign and ICANN on September 4, 2026. He claims the two used their .com registry contract to keep .com renewal prices well above competitive levels.
Who could be covered: People and businesses in the United States that paid to renew one or more .com domain names from September 4, 2022 to the present. Only California renewers are in the proposed class that seeks money damages.
The price at issue: Verisign charges registrars a wholesale fee of $10.26 for each .com registration and renewal. ICANN's published fee schedule shows it rising to $10.97 on November 1, 2026.
No claim to file: This is a newly filed lawsuit. No class has been certified, no settlement exists and no one can sign up for payment.
The case: Kessler v. VeriSign, Inc., No. 2:26-cv-09960-SB-BFM, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, assigned to Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr.
Next deadline: ICANN waived formal service and must answer or otherwise respond by December 14, 2026, according to the docket.
Allegations only: The court has not ruled on any claim. Class Action Pulse found no public response from Verisign or ICANN.

What the lawsuit claims

Plaintiff Jeff Kessler says Verisign holds a monopoly over the .com registry and that ICANN, the nonprofit that oversees the internet's naming system, helped protect it. According to the 137-page complaint, the two signed and repeatedly renewed an agreement that lets Verisign keep running .com without competitive bidding and stops ICANN from limiting what Verisign charges.

The complaint calls the result an overcharge paid by everyone who owns a .com address. It alleges that Verisign's own filings imply a cost of about $3.10 per domain, that its operating margin is above 67% and that its markup over cost is about 232%. Comparing .com with nine large country-code registries such as Germany's .de and the United Kingdom's .uk, the complaint puts their average wholesale fee at about $5.21. It estimates the yearly overcharge to .com's roughly 166 million registrants at "nearly $1 billion and growing."

The lawsuit brings eight claims:

Agreement in restraint of trade under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, against both defendants
Monopolization under Section 2 of the Sherman Act, against Verisign
Conspiracy to monopolize under Section 2, against both defendants
Two claims under California's Cartwright Act, the state's antitrust law
Three claims under California's Unfair Competition Law

Kessler asks the court to certify the classes, award damages (trebled where the law allows), bar enforcement of the contract terms that prevent ICANN from limiting .com prices, and order other relief including interest and attorneys' fees.

Who the parties are

Jeff Kessler is a California resident who, according to the complaint, owns six .com domains. Three are personal sites he renewed through Google Domains and later Squarespace for $12 a year each until 2025, when the price rose to $15. The other three redirect visitors to .org sites he runs, because he found that people typed .com by default.

VeriSign, Inc. is a Delaware corporation based in Reston, Virginia, traded on Nasdaq as VRSN. It is the sole operator of the .com and .net registries, meaning it maintains the master database for every address ending in those suffixes.

ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is a California nonprofit public benefit corporation headquartered in Los Angeles. It signs the contracts that let registry operators such as Verisign run top-level domains.

Kessler is represented by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP. The firm's lawyers on the complaint include Steve Berman, Christopher Pitoun and Rio Pierce.

Your registrar is not a defendant Companies such as GoDaddy, Namecheap and Squarespace sell domains to the public, but the complaint expressly excludes all ICANN-accredited registrars from the proposed classes. It claims they pass Verisign's wholesale fee through to customers, which is why the suit is brought on behalf of the people who pay retail prices.

How com pricing works

A domain name passes through three layers. The registry (Verisign, for .com) keeps the official list. Registrars, the retail sellers, pay the registry a fixed wholesale fee for every new registration and renewal. The registrant, the person or business that owns the name, pays the registrar a retail price that includes that fee plus the registrar's own markup.

The complaint uses a GoDaddy example. When a business renews "mybakery.com" for $22.99, $10.26 of that goes to Verisign, "a cost no registrar can avoid." Verisign in turn pays ICANN $0.2575 for each annual .com registration, according to Verisign's 2025 annual report as quoted in the complaint.

Verisign has already scheduled the next increase. A notice it sent ICANN on April 23, 2026, and ICANN's current fee schedule both set the wholesale price for new registrations, renewals and transfers at $10.97 starting November 1, 2026. That is roughly a 7% rise, the maximum the contract allows in a given year.

The complaint argues that .com owners cannot easily leave. A business that has built its email, search ranking and customer recognition around a .com address would lose much of that by switching to another suffix. The complaint notes that the renewal rate for .com has stayed around 75% even though more than 1,200 new top-level domains have launched since 2012.

How the contract allegedly locked in higher prices

The complaint traces the current terms to a 2006 agreement. It describes the history this way:

2001: Verisign's .com agreement capped the wholesale price at $6.00 and contemplated competitive rebidding.
2005: In a contest for the smaller .net registry, Verisign bid $3.50 per domain to win.
2004: Verisign sued ICANN in federal court, accusing it of trying to assume "regulatory power" over Verisign's business.
2006: ICANN signed a new .com agreement with a "presumptive renewal" clause and a pricing clause allowing 7% increases in four of every six years. The agreement also barred ICANN from setting or limiting Verisign's prices. The complaint says ICANN's board approved it by a vote of 9 to 5.
2008: The U.S. Justice Department's Antitrust Division told the Commerce Department that Verisign had significant market power and urged competitive bidding for renewals, according to the complaint.
2012: The price was frozen at $7.85 under federal oversight.
2018: A Commerce Department amendment to its cooperative agreement with Verisign, known as Amendment 35, removed those price caps.
2020: ICANN approved a further amendment allowing increases again. The complaint says more than 9,000 public comments were filed, with only seven in favor, and that Verisign agreed to pay ICANN an extra $20 million.
2021 to 2024: The wholesale fee rose from $7.85 to $8.39, $8.97, $9.59 and then $10.26.
2024: The agreement was renewed through 2030.

If Verisign takes every permitted increase, the complaint projects the price will reach about $13.44 by 2030, roughly 71% above the old $7.85 level.

The suit also leans on an earlier case. In Coalition for ICANN Transparency v. VeriSign, a federal appeals court in 2010 allowed antitrust claims over the 2006 agreement to go forward. That case later settled without a ruling on whether the agreement broke antitrust law.

The November price rise is not on hold Filing a lawsuit does not change Verisign's prices. The $10.97 wholesale fee takes effect November 1, 2026, and registrars may raise retail renewal prices to match. Only a court order, a settlement or a contract change could alter that.

Who is in the proposed classes

The complaint proposes two classes. Both cover renewals, not first-time registrations.

Nationwide Injunctive Relief Class: "All persons or entities in the United States that paid for the renewal of one or more .com internet domain name registrations during the period beginning September 4, 2022 until the present." This class seeks a court order changing the contract terms, not money.
California Class: The same definition, limited to California residents. This class seeks damages and restitution as well as an injunction.

The defendants, their officers, directors, employees and affiliates, all ICANN-accredited registrars, government entities, judicial officers and their staff, and jurors are excluded. Some early coverage described the case as covering anyone who "registered" a .com domain. The complaint's definitions are narrower and refer only to paid renewals.

These classes are only proposals. A judge must decide whether the case can proceed as a class action at all, and the definitions can change before then.

Where the case stands

The complaint was filed September 4, 2026, and the court issued a summons to ICANN on October 9. On October 15, Kessler's lawyers filed a waiver of service signed for ICANN. Under that waiver, the docket lists ICANN's answer as due December 14, 2026. Class Action Pulse could not confirm from available docket entries when Verisign was served or when its response is due.

Typical next steps in a case like this are a motion to dismiss by one or both defendants, a ruling on whether the claims can go forward, and only later a fight over class certification. Each step can take months. A settlement or dismissal could also end the case at any point.

Neither Verisign nor ICANN has filed a response to the allegations, and Class Action Pulse found no public statement from either. The complaint's figures on costs, margins and comparator prices are the plaintiff's calculations and have not been tested in court.

For cases that are open to claimants now, see our list of class action cases you can join.

Keep your renewal receipts No action is required to stay in a proposed class. If you renew .com domains, saving the invoices or account history from your registrar is a simple way to document what you paid in case a class is ever certified or a settlement asks for proof.

What remains unclear

Verisign's position. No answer, motion or public statement from Verisign was available as of October 19, 2026.
Service on Verisign. The available docket entries show the ICANN waiver but not Verisign's service status.
Damages for people outside California. Only the California Class seeks money. The nationwide class seeks a change to the contract terms.
The scale of any recovery. The nearly $1 billion annual overcharge figure is the plaintiff's estimate. Whether any money is ever paid, and to whom, depends on how the case is decided or settled.
The federal role. The complaint says the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration stated in 2024 that it lacks authority over .com prices. How the court views the government's past involvement could matter to the defense.

This article is for information only and is not legal advice. Domain owners with questions about their own rights can contact class counsel or a licensed attorney.

Frequently asked questions

Can I join the Verisign .com class action?

There is nothing to join yet. The case is a proposed class action, and no class has been certified. If a class is certified or a settlement is reached, people covered by it would be notified and told how to take part.

Does this lawsuit cover new .com registrations?

No. Both proposed classes are defined as people and entities that paid to renew .com domains since September 4, 2022. First-year registrations are not part of the definitions.

Will my .com renewal price go down?

Not because of the filing. Verisign's wholesale fee rises from $10.26 to $10.97 on November 1, 2026, under the current contract. Prices would only change if the court orders it, the parties settle or the contract is amended.

I live outside California. Am I covered?

Possibly by the nationwide class, which asks the court to change the contract terms but does not seek money. The damages class is limited to California residents.

Why is ICANN a defendant?

The complaint claims ICANN agreed to contract terms that guaranteed Verisign's renewal and barred ICANN from limiting .com prices, in exchange for higher fees paid to ICANN. It accuses both defendants of conspiring to restrain trade and to monopolize.

What does Verisign say?

Verisign had not filed a response or issued a public statement that Class Action Pulse could find as of October 19, 2026. The allegations have not been proven.