Revised ICANN, VeriSign Deal Still Uncertain

ICANN board members met this week about the revised deal with VeriSign for control of the .com registry. The revised deal would end all pending litigation between ICANN and VeriSign, as well as allow VeriSign to raise domain prices and continue to manage the registry for "near perpetuity." ..."ICANN's next regular meeting is at the end of March in New Zealand, and it seems incredulous that they wouldn't use that already-fixed date for a public meeting as the next legitimate time to discuss this." more»

VeriSign's Chief Hits Back at .com Critics

VeriSign's chief executive Stratton Sclavos has urged ICANN to quickly approve a deal that would allow the company to raise the price of .com domains, saying those who oppose it are acting out of "narrow economic interests".

The demand, in a letter published yesterday [PDF], came as opposition mounted to the proposal. Those criticizing the deal now include a former ICANN chief executive, and ICANN's At Large Advisory Committee, which represents end users. more»

EU To Compete with Dot-Com

There has been a flurry of activity among businesses and other domain-name holders in Europe following Tuesday's launch of the new ".eu" Internet domain by the European Union.

As of Thursday morning, some 270,000 applications for 198,000 different names using the new .eu tag had been received by the European Registry of Internet Domain Names (Eurid), which is authorized by the EU to operate the .eu registry, according to organization spokesperson Patrik Linden. more»

U.S. Congress Pushing for Adult Top-Level Domain

It's rare that Christian conservatives and the pornography industry agree on anything. But a congressional proposal to create a new Internet domain has made odd bedfellows of the two groups.

Some moderate Democrats in Congress are pushing for an Internet red-light district where pornography would be isolated on an ''.xxx'' domain. Conservatives and the adult entertainment industry are fighting the idea -- but for dramatically different reasons. more»

ICANN Releases New .Com Contract

Internet overseeing body ICANN has released a revised contract for all dotcoms which it hopes will finally end a huge legal fight at the heart of the Internet.

Significant changes have been made to the deal - which will hand control of all dotcom domains to current owner VeriSign until 2012 - following widespread criticism from the Internet industry. more»

Cyberspace Unity Eludes Europeans

They couldn't agree on a single constitution, and now it looks like Europeans can't agree on the best way to identify themselves on the Internet. For the first time on Wednesday, residents of the 25-nation European Union can register Internet addresses ending in ".eu". The move, which lifts .eu to the same prominence as the Web site suffixes .com, .org and .net, is intended to allow the expression of a single European identity in cyberspace. more»

Investigations into ICANN transparency continue

A new lobbying body calling itself the Campaign for ICANN Transparency (CFIT) has expanded its investigation into the internet overseeing organisation with a freedom of information request served on the US Department of Commerce.

The organisation has already served ICANN with a lawsuit in its home state of California claiming anti-trust abuses, and caused the EC to open an anti-competition investigation following a formal complaint. Now it hopes to discover examples of ICANN being less than truthful by requesting "materials related to discussions, memos and meetings and related contact that the government agency has had with the Internet Corporation for Assigned and Numbers (ICANN) on matters relating to the .net and .com registry agreements". more»

Request to Extend the 24-Day Comment Period on the Proposed VeriSign Agreement

Bruce Tonkin (MIT) wrote in the Registrars mailing list yesterday with this: "We the undersigned registrars, request that the public comment period on the proposed agreement with Verisign be extended until Sunday 4 Dec 2005 so as to allow opportunities for in-person public discussions during the upcoming ICANN meeting in Vancouver..." In terms of process, the Registrar Constituency (RC) by-laws prevent the RC from balloting on anything in less than 24 days, and ICANN could require the interest groups it recognizes to have decision making processes that are capable of responding to the Board of Director's decision making process, in a better administrative law world. more»

Where Did the .Root Top-Level Domain Come From?

It was pointed out to me the other day that the ICANN/NTIA/Verisign root zone file contains a previously undiscussed top level domain. The contents of this TLD suggest that it was created by Verisign, the company that actually constructs the root zone file used by the dominant set of root servers. (The same zone file is also used by at least one of the competing root systems.) That TLD is .root. It's existence is as real as any other TLD such as .com or .org... more»

Registrars File Lawsuit Against ICANN and VeriSign

Newman & Newman, the law firm representing an ad hoc coalition of ICANN-accredited domain name registrars, has filed a lawsuit today against ICANN and VeriSign to Stop 'Anti-Consumer, Anti-Competitive' Wait List Service Implementation. ...The complaint attacks ICANN and VeriSign based on 1) Unfair Trade Practices Act Violations; 2) Violation of California Business & Professions Code; 3) Unlawful Tying Arrangement; 4) Attempted Monopolization; 5) Violation of Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act; 6) Intentional Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage; 7) Breach of Contract; and 8) Declaratory Relief. more»

ALAC on New Domain Registry Services

This is a preliminary input for the current policy-development process on "new registry services" that was prepared by ALAC members; Jonathan Weinberg has provided input and comments in response to earlier drafts. The ALAC is currently soliciting comments on this text. Comments can be submitted either to CircleID (see comment section), or to the ALAC's public comment address at forum@alac.icann.org. ..."In the present document, we will focus on substantive criteria to be used by ICANN in evaluating requests to review proposed changes to the architecture or operation of a gTLD registry. We are, however, not stating any opinion about the kinds of requests that ICANN currently has the authority (or obligation) to consider." more»

Reaction to VeriSign-NSI Break Up

On October 16, 2003, VeriSign announced the sale of its Network Solutions (NSI) business unit three years after its purchase from SAIC. This is a report on the historical snapshot of Network Solutions and a collection of commentaries made in response to this event...Network Solutions, Inc. was founded by Emmit J. McHenry as a joint venture with the National Science Foundation and AT&T... more»

$100 Million Lawsuit Filed Against VeriSign

Popular Enterprises LLC, the parent company of Netster.com, has filed a $100 million dollar lawsuit against VeriSign, Inc. The Complaint alleges antitrust violations, unfair competition and violations of the Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act based upon VeriSign's release of the Site Finder product. The suit requests injunctive relief to prevent VeriSign from operating Sitefinder, and to otherwise cease what Popular Enterprises believes to be its monopolistic practices. more»

Do We Need The New Top-level Domains?

After a long and exhaustive process it was finally decided by ICANN to introduce seven new top level domains in December. Well, they are not really introduced yet because the United States Government has the final word and they have not approved of them yet. Did you understand what I just wrote - the United States Government decides what names you can have on the Internet? more»