VeriSign has won the battle over the .net registry, reclaiming the five million Internet domains as its own.

The decision announced late last night by ICANN will see it and the monster company "promptly enter negotiations... to reach a mutually acceptable registry agreement".

The approval follows an independent evaluation by Telcordia which saw VeriSign just edge Sentan on points, with Afilias, Denic and CORE++ coming next in that order.

The Telcordia group contained a number of people with close ties to VeriSign, but to suggest foul play would be unfair - VeriSign was always the frontrunner and since it already runs the .net registry, the decision to re-award it to the company will mean the least hassle for all those involved. VeriSign hasn't even bothered to put out a press release about it.

However, it does mean a great opportunity to break the control that VeriSign still maintains over the Internet (as the owner of all dotcoms and dotnets) has been lost. We are a little amazed that Sentan came a close second and that Denic came fourth. And we a little bemused by the number-colour system that Telcordia came up with to decide the winner.

But, after a review of the 58-page report, we will get back and hopefully explain all. You can read more on ICANN's site here.®

Related link

ICANN announcement

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