Nineteen Registrars Decry ICANN Arrangement

hpcanswers writes "ICANN, the governing body for Internet domain names, recently gave VeriSign exclusive control of the top-level .com domain until 2012. Now, nineteen registrars, including GoDaddy and Network Solutions, have petitioned ICANN to reconsider on the basis that VeriSign will most likely increase registration fees. A few of the registrars have also asked the US Department of Commerce to veto the deal." From the article: "The new deal permits VeriSign to increase the price of domain name registrations by 7 per cent in four of the next six years. In the two remaining years, VeriSign will only be able to raise prices if it can show the rises are necessary for security reasons. It also gives VeriSign a presumptive right to renewal of the .com registry, on the proviso that it complies with certain aspects of the agreement."

Vint Cerf Sell Out

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

There is something very unhealthy going on at ICANN, and I just can imagine any reasonable explanations other than money changing hands over riding commonsense and objectivity. I'm very disappointed in Vint Cerf, my opinion of him has lost a lot of ground over this.

Re:GoDaddy Blog

[eln]

People say the UN shouldn't do this because the UN is corrupt and inefficient. However, Verisign is verifiably corrupt and inefficient as well, perhaps even more so. Verisign has a clear profit motive for everything it does, and the way it runs the .com domain is geared toward maximizing its own profit. The UN, on the other hand, has no such motive. Individual officers within the UN have profit motives, and hence the corruption. However, unlike Verisign, there are lots of watchdogs ferreting out corruption in the UN.

In addition, although the monolithic entity known as "the UN" is rife with corruption, but there are still plenty of individual agencies within the UN that do good work in a reasonably efficient manner. There is no reason to believe an agency within the UN would be anywhere near as bad at running DNS than ICANN already is.

The primary reason there is so much resistance to the UN taking over boils down to American pride, and the hit it would take (among people who care about these things) if such a visible role were taken over by a global agency.

Re:Vint Cerf Sell Out

[Krach42]

Yeah, there was that whole big stink about the US gov having control over ICANN.

It's interesting now that these US companies are now asking the US government to force ICANN in exactly the same way that everyone abroad was concerned about.

Not to say that one way is better than the other... just that ICANN and the US gov keep insisting that the US gov won't regulate it, and the irony of VeriSign's competitors asking for exactly such an action.

Are *you* for real?

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

...it's all a conspiracy of U.S. control blah blah blah blah blah...

Mainly, I'm saying I think money changed hands in unsavory ways.

Re:Where's the increased cost?

[qwijibo]

In a bureaocracy, the way you get ahead as an individual is to increase the headcount reporting to you. These people do not have to generate profit or solve any problems, they just have to exist to justify your promotion and the creation of mutiple departments to report to the new manager/director/etc. The cost of running these organizations steadily increases over time, even without having any R&D, distribution or production cost increases.

I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it is real.

Re:I got that...

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

...I was mainsly saying that doesn't make any sense to single out Vint Cerf.

I think it does. Vint Cerf advertises himself as a forward thinker, a Renaissance Man of the Internet. But his agreement to sell Dot Com to VeriSign shows that he has fallen into the Greed Trap.

Too many domain names

[Necroman]

Well, I believe it is too late already, but when domains started costing $7 each, instead of the previous $50-$100 they were back in the 90s, the number of domains jumped way up. With that, you have tons of junk domains out there that aren't being used, or are bought up because it is so cheap to do. I don't see how raising the price at this point would do anything but put more money in VeriSign's pockets... *shrug*

Re:Security Reasons.

[equack]

The first time I registered a domain it was free (10+ years ago). The didn't institute registration fees until the volume became a problem.

Re:oh please

[anothy]

that's largely not the point. hell, i'd take the deal if offered. but i don't have a documented history of abusing my power over millions of people, nor specifically violating terms of deals between me and ICANN. sure, part of the problem is the single point of control, but that's a hard one to solve. the much more obvious, and much easier to solve, problem is who they went with: an abusive, power-hungry company with a really bad track record.

Remeber Alternic?

[cyberscan]

I remember when a few years agao that Internic had a monopoly on ALL REGISTRATIONS. Many people did not like the fees it was charging. Of course, since the only way to register a domain on the Internet was to go through Internic, Internic held all of the cards, and people were forced to pay its fees. That was until some had the bright idea of starting an alternate domain name registration system. All that is (basically) needed to set up a functional alternate domain name is a number of DNS servers with large bandwidth Internet connections and some persuasion to get people and ISP's to use these DNS servers. Of course this could cause mass confusion on the Internet if DNS systems did not respect each other's name to IP mappings.

This is almost what occured before Internic gave up its monopoly on Domain registration in the 90's. I believe that what is happening is that we are seeing a re-monopolization of Internet and telecommunication. The telcos are mergering as well as many different ISP's. Once this monoplolization is completed, the small voice will once again be drowned out. Yes, there will be those in Congress who will decry this re-monoplolization, but in the end, it will still happen.
There will be token concessions by the giant telcos as well as giant ISP's that will somewhat limit the power that these entities will wield, but eventually the eneviable will happen. All of this can be prevented, but it will take more than voicing ones opinion to congress and complaining to the press. It will take work and innovation by us average Joes.

Verizon recognizes the dangers (or true competition) presented by muninets, FreeNets, FreeWans, as well as other types of networks. This is why this company is purchasing legislation in order to prevent local governments from working to set up these types of networks. Average Joes do not have the legal force required to seize land in order to install buried cables, nor do the have access to taxpayer financed cables that have already been laid. There are many miles of "dark fiber" that has been laid but never activated by the telcos for Interet infrastructure, yet the average joes does not have the legal authority to use these resources.

What the average Joe does have is the ability to research and innovate. These average Joes include amateur (ham) radio operator as well as hackers. These are the type of people who can build local local wide area networks. Even when only a hundred different computer users are connected together, a vast wealth of information can be shared with withing the network. Combine local wide aread networks or FreeWan cells with "Sneakernets", then just about all filesharing needs can be met. A box full of DVD's packed with files can be a huge chunk of information! Muninet or FreeWan cells that have limited or no connection between them can still have information relayed between them via roving computers or the proverbial sneakernet. Of course, instant messaging, fast email, and many type of rapid communication between different networks is nearly impossible without relying on cartel controlled infrastructure, this may change in the future with enough innovation. Todays technology is more than sufficient to meet nearly all filesharing needs independently from the cartels.

My FreeWan cell is set up as a mini Internet. Visit http://plaza1.net/FreeWan [plaza1.net] to get a small taste of what can be made available for little cost. If one connects to my FreeWan Cell wirelessly, that person will quickly see an introduction to the FreeWan system when a URL is typed into their web browser. I provide the DNS from the top-level on down for my little area. If this does not sound impressive, then maybe the blazing transfer speeds will.
10 Mbit per second at 0 cost will. This is the type of speed that should be made available across the United States, However, rather than being limited by technology, we are limited by the greed of the cartels.

Alternic was orginially put together t