Also, the company blows away Street forecasts. VeriSign, which blew past Wall Street's expectations in earnings released Thursday, inked the extension with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers earlier this month, but critics complained that the deal gave too much power to the company and would hurt competitors. Under a previous arrangement, VeriSign was to have split off the unit running the database from its business of selling new domains by March 10, 2001.
Domains are the extensions at the end of Web addresses.
In return, VeriSign agreed to relinquish control of the .org database by the end of 2002. The company would retain control of the dot-net database for at least a few more years. VeriSign said it was not troubled by the letter and that it expects the government eventually will approve the deal. The plans also allowed competitors for the first time to register new domains, though Network Solutions continued to operate the databases. About that time, Network Solutions and the government agreed that the company could continue to manage the domains until 2001.