Verisign vs. ICANN

Paul Vixie vixie at vix.com
Fri Jun 18 22:20:28 UTC 2004


cook at cookreport.com (Gordon Cook) writes:

> in my estimation [verisign] would like to control telecom by control of
> the numbers associated therewith.
> 
> ...
> 
> ... I am tying to stay away from this cesspool.  It brings no income -
> only grief.  But, knowing what i know, i am remiss if i don't stick my
> head up here.
> 
> I go waaayyyy back with network solutions to 1994 actually and i keep
> damned good archives.  If I can assist Paul or the anti-verisign part of
> this case in building the details of the history of who did what to whom,
> I gladly will do so

that's an interesting offer for several reasons.  i meet many people in my
travels who weren't domainholders when the system was first commercialized
and so they do not remember any of the times network solutions overstepped
internic's charter in order to, for example, unilaterally impose new terms
in the domain change templates.  in fact most people don't know what a
domain change template was, or what internic was, or who GSI was or who SRI
was.  and without that knowledge, it's easy to mistake the icann/verisign
legal battle as "turf related".

i know of any number of nose-holding fence-sitters who only tolerate icann
(or consider icann relevant) because icann is somehow keeping verisign from
abusing their monopoly -- and who feel betrayed every time icann fails.  i
know folks who are still angry with icann and with us-DoC for ever signing
the current .COM registry agreement -- the one verisign says is too
restrictive and claims icann is violating.

there's a huge amount of history that's required before anybody should draw
conclusions or form opinions about icann or verisign.

however, it would have to be written up by someone who is not an ambulance
chaser before it could have any effect on unbiased objective observers.
-- 
Paul Vixie



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