Domain Name News: “GoDaddy Issues Close to 50% of all Net New SSL Certificates” plus 1 more

GoDaddy Issues Close to 50% of all Net New SSL Certificates

Posted: 14 Jan 2011 01:41 PM PST

According to a report issued by Netcraft Ltd., a leading industry analyst, Go Daddy now issues approximately 50 percent of net new SSL certificates. The report also cited “strong progress” for Go Daddy’s Extended Validation SSL certificates, which more than doubled in market share over the past year, rising from 4.2 percent to 9 percent.

“It’s almost laughable! Symantec, who purchased VeriSign’s SSL division, boasts about how they’ve ‘slashed‘ prices, but their cert is still three times the price of a Go Daddy cert,” Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons pointed out. “Our certs do the same thing, plus Go Daddy’s world class service is every bit as good as their paid service and unlike theirs, our telephone service is available 24 hours a day, free of charge. Of course our market share is growing!”

Certificates Market Share 2009 Report By Netcraft

[via Press Release]

Please see our Editorial Commentary by Frank Michlick after the jump.

This probably explains Verisign’s decision to sell their SSL & Security Units including the Verisign, Thawte and Geotrust brands to Symantec, which is a great fit as a buyer. Over the past years I have been wondering how Verisign would be able to maintain the high price point of their premium brands Verisign & Thawte over the next years – it appears they have lost large parts of the market share already, at least when it comes to newly issued certificates.

I’ve always been fascinated by the SSL business, since the actual cost of the product is not in the signing of the certificate, but mostly in the validation of the entity that buys it and even that has been largely automated by the “whois validation” certificates. I’ve thought of it as a money printing business, they main challenge in it being to make sure that other software vendors accept your certificate – more of a political than a technical challenge.

The margins in this business certainly are bigger than anywhere else, but with the increased reach of competition and their certificates being accepted more and more a change in the market just a question of time, now that basically all of the providers have comparable reach.

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The .ORG Registry, PIR, Names Brian Cute CEO

Posted: 14 Jan 2011 01:14 PM PST

.ORG, The Public Interest Registry (PIR) — manager of the world’s third largest generic top-level domain — today appointed Mr. Brian Cute as chief executive officer. With more than 12 years of experience in the Internet and communications industry, Mr. Cute will assume his leadership position on February 1, 2011.

Prior to joining PIR, Mr. Cute served as vice president of discovery services for Afilias, the registry operator for the .ORG domain. Cute had management positions in both a leading domain name registrar, Network Solutions, as director of policy, and a leading registry, Verisign, as vice president of government relations until 2003. He has led initiatives on wait-list service, private domain registrations, the elimination of Bulk WHOIS, and numerous other ICANN policy matters.

“As Chairman of the Accountability and Transparency Review Team at ICANN, Brian has constructively advanced the ongoing debate of getting the Internet industry to function more explicitly and effectively. We at PIR are pleased to have him on board, and we look confidently towards a future in which PIR will continue to step up in the public interest.“said Maarten Botterman, chairman of the board and interim chief executive officer.

Cute is replacing Alexa Raad, who had resigned from this position last year effective September 24th, 2010.

[via Press Release]