An executive vice president of Verisign Inc., which manages the ".com" and ".net" domain name registry, exercised options for 48,589 shares of common stock under a prearranged trading plan, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Monday.

In a Form 4 filed with the SEC, Mark D. McLaughlin reported he exercised options for the shares last Thursday for $17.94 to $26.40 apiece and then sold 48,389 of them on the same day for $33 to $33.22 each.

The stock sale was conducted under a prearranged 10b5-1 trading plan, which allows a company insider to set up a program in advance for such transactions and proceed with them even if he or she comes into possession of material non-public information.

Insiders file Form 4s with the SEC to report transactions in their companies' shares. Open market purchases and sales must be reported within two business days of the transaction.

VeriSign is based in Mountain View, Calif.