Verisign is a famous American company known for its authoritative domain registry business. While surfing the internet, we visit several web pages every day. If we notice the URL of these web pages, we can find .com, .net, etc at the end of the addresses. These are known as domain names and when an individual or a company wants to launch a website online, it needs to be registered under a certain domain name. Verisign is responsible domain name registry for two of the most extensively used domains, namely, .com and .net. It is the main business of the company apart from which it offers a variety of security services.
About Verisign
James Bidzos established Verisign Inc in April 1995. The company’s headquarters is based in Reston, Virginia, US. It is responsible for operating a diverse array of network infrastructure with two top-level domains in the internet root nameservers. It is also responsible for country-code top-level domains like .cc and .tv and also back-end systems for top-level domains like .gov and .edu. This is the core business unit of Verisign and apart from that it offers distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), security services for cyber threats, etc.
Verisign also had an authentication business unit that was sold to Symantec in 2010. The deal was closed at $1.28 billion and it included Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate, Verisign Trust Seal, public key infrastructure, and Verisign Identity Protection Services. The ownership again changed in 2017 when Symantec sold it to DigiCert. Verisign also let go of its Security Service Customer Contracts to NeuStar Inc in 2018.
History Of The Company
Verisign was originally a part of the RSA Security certification services business unit. The parent company is an American-based business that specializes in network security using encryption. Verisign was formed as a spin-off in 1995 and this newly formed company received the RSA-held licenses for key cryptographic patents. These licenses were set to expire in 2000 and it was also a time-limited agreement. The new company that was formed operated as a certificate authority (CA) to ensure trust for the internet through digital authentication.
From 1995 to 2010, Verisign operated on a large scale and in various sectors from military to retail applications. It had more than 3 million certificates that making it the largest CA in the world. But in 2010, it sold its authentication business unit to Symantec, and the same year the company announced that it would be moving from California to Northern Virginia. Verisign started acquiring different companies after a few years of the spin-off. In 2000, it acquired Network Solutions that was responsible for operating the domains .net, .com, and .org. The company operated these domains under an agreement with Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers and the United States Department of Commerce.
Business Growth And Expansion
The acquisition of Network Solutions formed the powerhouse of the core and the largest business unit of Verisign. After three years, Verisign decided to divest the Network Solutions retail but at the same time retained the business of domain registry. It was a very flourishing business and since it became the center of Verisign the company put its maximum focus on domain registry. By the end of 2010, the company reported annual revenue of $681 million which was 10 percent more than that of 2009. Verisign, over the years, has also faced many controversies regarding domain names, especially from the US government.
James Bidzos – Founder And CEO
James Bidzos is the founder and CEO of the domain registry company, Verisign. Initially, he was not appointed the CEO of the company. But, after the resignation of Mark McLaughlin in 2011, James became the next CEO. He is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors at Verisign. In 1986, James joined RSA and according to him, the company was a big failure as there was no product and customers. It was under his leadership that RSA developed an encryption toolkit and landed contracts with Motorola and Novell. He also served as CEO of RSA before the spin-off in 1995.
Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more