November 21, 2005 4:00 AM PST
Perspective: ICANN, VeriSign make strange bedfellows
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The organizations claim the proposal clears the way for a "...new and productive public-private partnership" between VeriSign and ICANN "...for the benefit of the Internet community."
Not so fast. This deal is actually a signal that the end of the Internet community's role in determining its own future may be imminent. This is a $1.5 billion giveaway that proposes to permanently transfer important public infrastructure to VeriSign. The deal proposes to:
• Lock in domain registration price increases, adding significant cost increases to consumers over the next seven years--to the benefit of only ICANN and VeriSign;
• Allow for the expansion of VeriSign's natural monopoly, to the detriment of competitive segments of the market; and
• Grant VeriSign permanent control of the .com database.
VeriSign's role as a generic top-level domain administrator, as defined in RFC 1591, is to "perform a public service on behalf of the Internet community." (RFCs are documents that describe Net standards.) Implementing this relationship through ICANN has been a boon for all involved. VeriSign has supported the .com public infrastructure as a cornerstone of the digital economy; ICANN has been guaranteed a steady revenue stream via surcharges it receives from domain registrars; and VeriSign has captured $6 for every .com domain name registration or renewal.
Despite this apparent "win-win-win," VeriSign has historically been unhappy with its role as a top-level domain administrator. VeriSign takes the position that the company can and should be able to cash in on the domain name system. VeriSign CEO Stratton Sclavos has said that "DNS response is an obligation we took on when we inherited (the .com administration contract). But it would be commercially unreasonable for anyone to suggest that we shouldn't be allowed to build incremental services on top of that."
This puts VeriSign directly at odds with the community it was designated to serve and has resulted in hefty legal fees and a flawed settlement proposal. Rather than reinforcing the relationship between the two parties, the proposed settlement agreement redefines it. VeriSign successfully leveraged the litigation into a complete renegotiation of its contract with ICANN staff who seemingly played right along to avoid further litigation.
VeriSign should be rewarded a fair commercial return on its investment as the administrator of .com, but the community cannot assign it irrevocable rights to .com.
Any settlement must make it clear that VeriSign does not own .com. Additionally, it must encourage the creation of more competition in the industry, not less. Fixed terms for the administration contracts and predictable pricing structures need to be extended to all registry administrators. Further, ICANN has to clear the path for registries to compete, by regularly re-bidding registry management contracts and creating new generic top-level domain administrators. This will drive registration fees lower, rather than higher as proposed in the pending settlement.
ICANN is currently seeking input on the proposed settlement via its Web site. It needs to hear from the community.
Biography
Ross Rader is director of research and innovation for Internet registrar TUCOWS.
See more CNET content tagged:
VeriSign Inc., community, proposal, settlement, RFC
8 comments
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terminology, but what comes thru clearly in Article 4, term of agreement, is that it "shall be renewed...on expiration...and each later term".
Thats a perpetual contract.
Article 6, Termination Provisions, Section 6.1, spells out that ICANN may terminate the contract "if and only if" RO fails to cure etc. Any way you cut it this contract benefits only VeriSign. The internet community is not provided any benefit of competition, forever.
Maybe giving control to the UN might be in everyone's best interest after all. At least you know the pirates would try to cut each others throats instead of just the users.
But if I had to pick one ICANN sin among them all as the worst, I would say it is ignoring the bottom-up, consensus-driven, out-in-the-open decision-making that has been key to the growth of the internet.
In it's current version ICANN/VERISIGN deal - if approved - may become a signal to create new 'internet-monopoly-tolls'. Let's carge $50 for each static IP address, why not? Scheming maybe more complicated, but danger of abuse of monopoly is absolutely most serious.
Please send more comments like this to ICANN:
Verisign Settlement
To: <settlement-comments@icann.org>
Subject: Verisign Settlement
Similar to other concerned parties- I join the strong opposition campain against the proposal that is in it's spirit and long term effect CORRUPT.
I'm writing to lodge strong opposition against the approval of the agreement between ICANN and Verisign.
We feel that:
* The ICANN Board of Directors, should not approve the agreement
between ICANN and Versign in its current form.
* The proposed .com renewal contract should be reworked to reflect
the Internet community's concerns.
* The gTLD namespaces are a public trust; no registry operator
should be given indefinite control over them, especially one as
important as .com.
* Any price increases by VeriSign's or any other registry should
be cost-based and subject to approval.
* All ICANN fees should continue to be approved by the Internet
community.
* Internet users should not have to pay an unreasonable "ICANN Tax" or pay more for domain names just to increase a single registry's
profits.
"Pending public comment and full approval by the ICANN board, the proposed agreement settles many long standing points of tension between VeriSign and ICANN which have adversely affected the broader Internet community. It eliminates all pending litigation between the two parties, and - importantly for the community - more ICANN staff and resources can be devoted to ICANN's core functions, rather than to litigation with VeriSign over the terms of the .com registry agreement. In the future, in the event of a disagreement relating to the .com registry agreement, both sides will be able to make use of binding arbitration under the International Chamber of Commerce."
One of ICANNS core function is .com, and reducing competition. This agreement goes right against ICANN's core functions.