The US Department of Commerce has finally renewed Verisign's contract to run the .COM registry for the next six years, but surprisingly
they have denied the registry's ability to raise prices as part of the approval.

The announcement means the fee Verisign charges registrars for .COM domain names will remain at the current $7.85 for the life of the
agreement that will run from 1 December 2012 through to 30 November 2018.In the contract,that ICANN and Verisign had earlier reached agreement upon,it would have seen VeriSign able to increase the fee by as much as seven percent four times over the term of the contract that could have meant the .com fee could have reached $10.29.

But there is a caveat, with the possibility of removing pricing restrictions entirely if Verisign demonstrates to the Commerce Department's
satisfaction that market conditions no longer warrant such restrictions.

The restriction on increasing the fee is being taken as a victory for the Internet Commerce Association who lobbied against the increase,
and actually wanted a decrease to $5.86.