VeriSign is selling its Network Solutions business unit but will retain a minority stake in it, the US company has said.
The buyer is Pivotal Private Equity, a US investor that has taken stakes in such companies as Pacific Global Crossing.
Under a definitive agreement, Pivotal will pay about US$100 million in cash and US$40 million in senior subordinated notes for Network Solutions, which maintains the .com and .net domain names under contract from the Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
VeriSign will keep a 15 percent stake in the largest Internet domain name registrar and will retain naming and directory services including DNS database management for about 30 million digital identities.
That business includes the directory for .com, .net, .cc, and .tv domain names. That group, plus security and authentication services, comprises the company's Internet Services Group.
VeriSign was in a firestorm in September over its Site Finder search service. Site Finder redirected mistakenly-typed .com and .net addresses to VeriSign-controlled sites, which could help find the correct URL but exposed the surfers to ad-sponsored pages.
Channel players and others complained that VeriSign hijacked web traffic for commercial gain. They also said that Site Finder could thus make fake or bad domain names appear legitimate, breaking spam filters and flooding customers with unwanted email.
ICANN asked VeriSign to suspend the service. VeriSign eventually did so but said it was evaluating its options.
This week in the US, VeriSign officials hinted that Site Finder might resurface but pledged to give customers 30- to 60-day notice. They maintained that the benefit users derive by being sent to a search site rather than getting an error message outweighed any disadvantages.
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