[governance] ICANN cleaning up the home front?

[Ralf Bendrath]

<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/25/technology/25internet.html?ex=1287892800&en=75c03f780c12f73d&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss>

October 25, 2005

Overseer of Net Addresses Ends Dispute With VeriSign

By JOHN MARKOFF

PALO ALTO, Calif., Oct. 24 - Icann, the Internet agency that oversees the 
assignment of network addresses, has settled a messy dispute with 
VeriSign, a security and services firm that controls the .com and .net 
network domains.

The company and the agency, the Internet Consortium for Assigned Names and 
Numbers, have been in a fight since the agency challenged VeriSign's 
controversial search service, which was introduced in late 2003. The 
service, called Sitefinder, redirected Internet Web surfers who mistyped 
Web addresses to sites controlled by VeriSign.

The company shuttered the service after the Internet community responded 
angrily on the grounds that it interfered with spam filters and gave 
VeriSign an unfair business advantage because of its role as an operator 
of several of the Internet's root domain name servers. (The domain name 
system matches numeric Internet addresses with names that are more easily 
recognized by Internet users and insures that there is no ambiguity in the 
assigned names.)

VeriSign sued Icann in federal court, charging it with illegally 
restraining competition. That lawsuit was thrown out in 2004, but 
VeriSign, based in Mountain View, Calif., refiled the lawsuit in 
California state court.

Under the terms of the settlement announced Monday, Icann agreed to put in 
place a process for offering new services. VeriSign's contract for 
operating the .com domain has also been extended as part a new agreement.

"The top line is that we now have a way to insure that any new service 
insures the security and the stability of the Internet," said Paul Twomey, 
Icann's chief executive.

The settlement is significant in part because it will accelerate efforts 
now under way to enhance the security of the domain name system, said 
Steve Crocker, chief executive of Shinkuro, a research and development 
firm coordinating the development of new Internet security technologies.

The Internet technical community has begun the development of a security 
enhancement to the current Internet infrastructure, known as the Domain 
Name System Security Extensions. Widespread use of these protocols could 
significantly reduce fraud and other crimes that currently plague the 
global network.

The agreement is also evidence that the current partnership of public and 
private entities informally governing the Internet is workable, Mr. Twomey 
said.

Next month in Tunis, the World Summit on the Information Society, or 
W.S.I.S., will hear a range of proposals for regulating the global data
network, which now operates largely without the kind of tight regulatory 
framework built around the voice telephone network.

The United States government has recently said that it no longer plans to 
give over control of Icann, which operates under a contract with the 
Commerce Department, to an international organization as was initially
planned by the Clinton administration. A range of proposals now before 
W.S.I.S. would increase the role of governments in overseeing the Internet.

Many of the executives and engineers who helped create the network fear 
that such changes will politicize and potentially fragment the network 
that carries a growing percentage of the world's commerce.

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