Elizabeth Warren Calls for Crackdown on Internet ‘Monopoly’ You’ve Never Heard Of

US senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and congressman Jerry Nadler of New York have called on government bodies to investigate what they allege is the “predatory pricing” of.com web addresses, the internet’s prime real estate. “VeriSign is exploiting its monopoly power to charge millions of users excessive prices for registering a.com top-level domain,” the letter claims. “VeriSign hasn’t changed or improved its services; it has simply raised prices because it holds a government-ensured monopoly.” “We intend to respond to senator Warren and representative Nadler’s letter, which repeats inaccuracies and misleading statements that have been aggressively promoted by a small, self-interested group of domain-name investors for years,” said Verisign spokesperson David McGuire in a statement to WIRED. “We look forward to correcting the record and working with policymakers toward real solutions that benefit internet users.” In an August blog post entitled “Setting the Record Straight,” the company claimed that discourse around its management of.com had been “distorted by factual inaccuracies, a misunderstanding of core technical concepts, and misinterpretations regarding pricing, competition, and market dynamics in the domain name industry.” In the same blog post, the company argues that it is not operating a monopoly because there are 1,200 generic top-level domains operated by other entities, including.org,.shop,.ai, and.uk.