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Tag: domain

Federal Contractors | Technology 2023: D. JAMES BIDZOS

An early advocate of encryption in commercial software, Bidzos is an internet and cybersecurity pioneer. Verisign is the largest internet domain name registry and infrastructure provider. Any address with a .com or .net domain suffix is registered with Verisign. With 350 million registered addresses on its list and 3.5 million more registering in the first quarter of 2023, Verisign keeps growing. It has 917 employees and reported $1.42 billion in revenue last year, up from $1.33 billion in 2021.

Bidzos, a Greek native and citizen, founded Verisign in 1995 as a spinoff of his work at RSA Data Security, an information security company that became one of the earliest encryption developers for commercial software. Bidzos started his career at IBM in the 1970s.

Last fall, Bidzos caught flak from federal lawmakers for resisting calls to join the “trusted notifier” initiative to identify and eventually disable digital piracy websites. Bidzos argued that a previous agreement with the Department of Commerce requires that Verisign operate in a content-neutral manner. “Verisign does not engineer its infrastructure nor adopt operational policies based on our own views,” Bidzos said in a statement.

Reston domain registry appoints chief tech officer

Rick Wilhelm assumed the role of chief technology officer for the Reston-based nonprofit Public Interest Registry on Monday.

Founded in 2002 by the Internet Society, a Reston-based nonprofit internet advocacy organization, PIR operates the .org top-level internet domain, which is responsible for more than 10.5 million domain names registered worldwide.

“PIR believes that more and stronger mission-driven organizations strengthen our communities, which is why we are pleased to have someone of Rick’s caliber take on the challenge of building out the technology vision so vital to the success of .org,” PIR President and CEO Jon Nevett said in a statement. “We will look to him to guide our efforts as we continually explore innovative ways to improve and secure the infrastructure vital to so many internet users.”

Wilhelm was most recently vice president of platform management for Verisign Inc. He has served in executive positions for Network Solutions LLC and Neustar Inc. and was a member of the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers’ security and stability advisory committee for almost three years.

“Serving as PIR’s CTO is a humbling responsibility,” Wilhelm said in a statement. “I look forward to helping strengthen PIR’s already-stellar technology platforms so we remain the gold standard for domain registries and enable organizations around the globe to help, heal, inspire and serve their communities.”

Internet governing body blocks $1.1B sale of Public Interest Registry

The governing body of Internet domain addresses voted Thursday to block the $1.135 billion sale of the Public Interest Registry, a Reston-based nonprofit created by the Internet Society in 2002 to manage the .org top-level domain, to private equity firm Ethos Capital.

The Public Interest Registry has operated the .org domain — which is used by millions of nonprofit organizations — since 2003. But in 2019, the nonprofit moved to sell the domain registry to Ethos in order to focus on philanthropic goals. The sale would have increased its endowment. 

However, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the governing body of Internet domain addresses, blocked the sale. ICANN said in a statement that the .org domain shouldn’t be operated by a company that is seeking profit, despite Ethos Capital’s pledge to maintain the .org domain as a “socially responsive mission.” 

The most valuable top-level domain behind .com, .org has more than 10.5 million domain registrations worldwide.

Virginia Business reported in March that tech experts were worried that the proposed sale to a private equity firm could raise costs for nonprofit organizations using the .org domain, especially since ICANN approved a contract last June to eliminate the $9.93 per year price cap on .org domain registration fees. 

ICANN said Ethos would need to service $360 million in debt to secure the transaction and provide returns to its shareholders.

“This decision will suffocate innovation and deter future investment in the domain industry,” Ethos said in a statement. “ICANN has empowered itself to extend its authority into areas that fall well outside of its legal mandate in acting as a regulatory body.”

Ethos was founded by Erik Brooks, the former managing partner of Boston-based investment fund Abry Partners. 

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