RE: Lawsuit on ICANN (was: Re: A few words on VeriSign's sitefinder)

["Stephen J. Wilcox" <steve () telecomplete co uk>]

> Not, I hasten to add, that I support Sitefinder or WLS (although I think I
> like "consolidate").  But what I like isn't the issue.  Even if having

Just to recap here, this thread plus the articles I'm reading miss one of the 
major points (a commercial one essentialy).. 

Verisign is really two entities wrt .com/net - it is the registry and the
registrar. As a registrar it occupies the same position as the many other
registrars.. tucows, melbourne, joker etc .. as a registry it occupies a
privileged position in that it is the only entity responsible for managing and
maintaining the gtld servers and zonefiles.

So, with that in mind, regardless of how beneficial you may think sitefinder is 
it exists to the exclusion and detriment of the other registrars, I just dont 
see how this is justifiable and supports the argument that Verisign is indeed 
abusing its position.

Steve


> ICANN win some of these is a short-run gain for usability of the Internet,
> making ICANN's approval required for every ancillary service or change in
> business model of every registry is a serious long-term drag on the
> evolution of the Internet.  Although, like all regulatory compliance work,
> it would generate serious lawyers' fees....
>
> On Thu, 26 Feb 2004, David Schwartz wrote:
>
> >     By the way, do we even know what we're talking about? Specifically, has
> > VeriSign produced a set of specifications for exactly what SiteFinder is and
> > does?
> >
> >     For example, is it guaranteed to return the same A record for all
> > unregistered domains? Is it guaranteed that that A record will not change?
> >
> >     Until VeriSign produces a technical specification for what it is they
> > intend to do, they cannot expect other people to opine about what effects
> > their changes will have. VeriSign has not yet even started the notification
> > and analysis period.
> >
> >     Isn't VeriSign's lawsuit premature? I mean, ICANN has not yet said no to
> > any specific technical proposal from VeriSign, at least as far as I know. Is
> > VeriSign arguing that they should be able to do whatever they want with the
> > root DNS, with no advance notice to anyone?
> >
> >     DS