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

Thu Feb 26 23:59:51 UTC 2004

in response to...
> http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/040226/tech_verisign_2.html
X-Mailer: MH-E 7.4; nmh 1.0.4; GNU Emacs 21.3.1

neil at DOMINO.ORG (Neil J. McRae) writes:
> can't say I'm surprised. Another nail in the Verisign coffin.

it's not nearly that simple.

john.neiberger at efirstbank.com ("John Neiberger") added:
> They must have taken a page from the recently-released book "How to Shoot Your
> Company in the Foot," by SCO.

there's a certain inevitability to these things.  sco believed that it had no choice
except closing its doors or suing.  verisign may feel likewise.  the palatable choices 
were all discarded much earlier, and not nec'ily in ways whose outcomes were knowable.

william at elan.net (William Leibzon) writes:
> And I'm sure ICANN will remember it for long time - right up to the point 
> when Verisign's contracts for .com/.net management are up for renewal.

IANAL, but upon rereading the contract a few months ago they looked self-perpetuating
and there appears to be no circumstance no matter how unreasonable under which icann
could select a different operator for the .com or .net registries.  but don't take my
word for it -- pay a lawyer to read <http://www.icann.org/registries/agreements.htm>
and then let us all know what she tells you.

the paper at <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=475281> entitled
"Site Finder and Internet Governance" by Jonathan Weinberg is also quite instructive.
-- 
Paul Vixie