VeriSign to auction ‘.bz’ names on eBay

SAN FRANCISCO: Security and Web address provider VeriSign Inc., which has

seen layoffs and missed its sales target partly as a result of

lower-than-expected Web address sales, on Wednesday announced it will auction

domain names on eBay Inc.

The auctions of ".bz" domain names will be targeted at businesses,

Verisign said in a statement. Other domain names are likely to follow, a

spokesman said. With 46 million users, eBay offers a ready market for everything

from vintage baseball cards and diet pills to airline tickets and used

computers.

The ".bz" domain is the top-level domain for the Central American

country of Belize and is different from the ".biz" domain, which is

one of the new generic top-level domains that will be entering the

".com" dominated market. VeriSign is overseeing the registry for the

".bz" domain.

Separately on Tuesday, VeriSign chairman and chief executive Stratton

Sclavos, speaking at the J P Morgan H&Q technology conference in San

Francisco, could not tell analysts when he thought sales of domain names might

pick up.

Those sales dropped off last year after the dot-com bubble's speculative burst in 1999 and 2000. Until then, buyers gobbled up Web addresses in a

frenzied attempt to stake a claim in the Internet.

Also under the eBay partnership, VeriSign will provide services to verify the

identification of sellers on eBay to help cut down on fraud. Currently, sellers

provide credit card information to register on eBay and customers can rate the

sellers following transactions.

"We're always finding people who have been suspended in the past and who

are trying to re-register," said Kevin Pursglove, an eBay spokesman.

"Or they're providing inaccurate information and are coming to the site to

engage in nefarious activity."

VeriSign will handle the registration process and validate the identity of

sellers by confirming phone numbers and addresses, said Anil Pereira, executive

vice president and general manager of VeriSign's enterprise and service provider

division.

For higher ticket items, VeriSign will also verify credit and other

information on potential sellers as part of its Authentication Service Bureau,

he said