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A petition to ICANN has been created to object to Verisign's Sitefinder. Text of it follows:
To: ICANN
We Internet users, who either own domain names or have an interest in the domain name system, wish to object to the VeriSign's Site Finder system. We believe that the system:
1. Breaks technical standards, by rewriting the expected error codes to instead point to VeriSign's pay-per-click web directory, and threatens the security and stability of the Internet;
2. Breaks technical standards affecting email services, and other Internet systems;
3. Is anti-competitive, providing VeriSign with 20 million eyeballs per day for "free", while not paying for the domains they are resolving. All other market participants pay at least $6 per domain per year (wholesale);
4. Violates trademark rights of domain holders, by typosquatting on their .com and .net domains; and
5. Violates the authoritative nature of DNS, turning it instead into a "best guess" system filled with uncertainty, thereby destroying the coherence of the DNS for VeriSign's own short-term profit.
We hereby demand that ICANN immediately:
a) Insist that VeriSign cease giving incorrect answers to any query in .com and .net, and should instead follow the IETF standards;
b) If VeriSign refuses, should re-delegate the .com and .net zones to registries that are more willing to follow the DNS standards;
c) For greater certainty for all gTLD registries, pass a resolution stating that "gTLD Registry operators WILL return NXDOMAIN for ALL DNS queries for which there is not a REGISTERED domain name"; and
d) That VeriSign be reprimanded for their monopolistic abuse of the DNS system, and return all audited gross revenues from their Site Finder system to stakeholders, via a payment to the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) of ICANN in the name of the Non-Commercial constituency
Supporting documentation can be found at the sites below:
http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/
http://www.opensrs.org/archives/discuss-list/0309/date.html
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/16/0034210
http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/registrars/
http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/ga/
http://log.does-not-exist.org/
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/lynn-message-to-iab-06jan03.htm
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/iab-message-to-lynn-25jan03.htm
http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/ga/msg00336.html
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
Written by George Kirikos, President, Leap of Faith Financial Services Inc.
Related topics: DNS, Domain Names, Law, Security, Top-Level Domains, Whois
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Great idea and a neccessary step to stop Verisigns ongoing misuse of its monopoly.
Hopefully ICANN decides to wake up now.
I signed.
I've had to update the petition site, as the prior site was broken. Please now link to:
http://www.whois.sc/verisign-dns/
Maybe we should go the way of IRC. Force a break in the oligarchy and break it up into a set of interconnected networks.. oopps… that would make it an INTERNET again. That would allow people to subscribe to the network that best suits their needs and allow people to block problematic networks from them via their gateways.
The idea is not new (See whois 404Advertising.com), but unilaterally doing it without technical consensus on how to do it, competitive bidding on who will do it, and a universally accepted use for the resulting income, makes it look remarkably like an act of theft. And, considering the value of every possible domain name conceivable, multiplied by VeriSign's current $25 fee, it could be observed as the largest theft in American history. Viewed in this light, and using historic data, one could reasonably expect VeriSign to be fined $100 for each such mis-direction (See Eugene Kashpureff "Hijacks" Internic.net). In any event, whatever you want to call it, it should indeed be grounds for pulling the government contract as soon possible.
Well, ICANN and IANA have a key opportunity to clean up the internet and stop acting like the impotent UN. With the pending rollout of IPv6, they can force all of thse monopolistic companies to comply with the desires of the community which uses the internet.