Slashdot Mirror

narramissic writes "Late last week, ICANN put up for comment a new top-level domain (TLD) proposal that would open up the market for generic TLDs on the Internet, basically allowing anyone with $185,000 to buy a new TLD. ICANN has based the cost of a generic TLD on what it believes will be the cost to evaluate applications and protect the organization against risk, said Paul Levins, ICANN's executive officer and vice president for corporate affairs. Any excess money would be redistributed based on the wishes of the Internet community, he said. As of late Tuesday, there were only a couple of comments on the proposal."

NdJ writes "Looks like a whole new domain name battle ground is about to open up. ICANN have just made available their How to Apply for a New Generic Top-Level Domain Draft Applicant Guidebook. It won't be cheap for the individual, but certainly achievable for many domain-name-pimps. 'The Evaluation Fee is designed to make the new gTLD program self-funding only. This was a recommendation of the Generic names Supporting Organization. A detailed costing methodology — including historical program development costs, and predictable and uncertain costs associated with processing new gTLD applications through to delegation in the root zone — estimates a per applicant fee of $US185,000. This is the estimated cost per evaluation in the first application round.'"

NotNormallyNormal writes "CBC picked up an AP story about ICANN recently losing control over two of their domain names on Thursday, June 26. A domain registrar run by the group transferred the domains to someone else. ICANN's press release had this to say: 'As has been widely reported, a number of domain names, including icann.com and iana.com were recently redirected to different DNS servers, allowing a group to provide visitors to those domains with their own website. It would appear the attack was sophisticated, combining both social and technological techniques, but was also limited and focused.' Comcast has had similar troubles lately as well."

An anonymous reader writes "A GoDaddy Vice President has been caught bidding against customers in their own domain name auctions. The employee Adam Dicker isn't just any GoDaddy employee; he's head of the GoDaddy subsidiary that controls the auctions. Dicker won some of the domains he bid for, and pushed up the bid price on auctions he didn't win. The conflict of interest is unethical, but could this practice also be illegal? Said a representative for a competitor, 'Even if controlled, that practice has bad news written all over it.' This comes hot on the heels of news that despite earlier promises to ICANN to end their 60-Day ban on transfers, GoDaddy quietly circumvented it by forcing customers to agree to the ban anyway. ICANN doesn't appear to be investigating or asking follow-up questions about this. What can be done to force ICANN to police the registrars for which it is responsible?"

Ian Lamont writes "Anti-spam service Knujon has released reports highlighting how certain registrars in the US and abroad have consistently failed to live up to certain WHOIS-related obligations under ICANN's Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) — specifically, the requirement that people or company registering domains provide valid contact information. Now the firm is requesting that ICANN shut down the worst alleged offender, Xinnet Bei Gong Da Software. According to Knujon, none of the WHOIS records in a sample of 11,000 alleged spam sites registered through Xinnet and reported by Knujon to ICANN's Whois Data Problem Report System were corrected in a six-month period ending in May 2008 — and the Chinese registrar continues to register about 100 spam sites per day. In many cases, says the Knujon document (PDF), Xinnet does not have 'any Whois record data for review while the sites are still active' and the spam sites further promote 'seal abuse' by posting bogus BBB, Verisign, and other trusted industry seals. ICANN says it is investigating. ICANN has just posted a draft revised RAA that is open for public comment until August 4. However, the wording of Section 3.7.8, governing registrars' obligations to check and correct domain owners' contact information, hasn't changed."

aos101 writes "The Renesys blog has an interesting story about networks advertising the old address space of the L root name server after ICANN changed the IP address last November. These networks were also running root name servers on the old IP address of the L root name server up until last week, so any DNS servers still using the old IP address might have been getting their answers from these bogus name servers. A very cursory examination by Renesys of one of these bogus servers found that it appeared to be providing correct responses, which might be why no one noticed the problem. As Renesys points out, the volume of traffic to a root server is staggering, so the people running these bogus root servers must have had a reason. What did they get out of it?"

An anonymous reader writes "For years, domain squatters have exploited an ICANN loophole: whenever a domain name is registered, ICANN collects a 20-cent fee from the registrar. To allow for non-paying customers, the registrar can return it five days later for a full refund. The loophole has let unscrupulous registrars constantly create and refund domain-squatting websites, selling 'what you need when you need it' advertising. The problem has grown so bad that every month the world's top three domain squatters, all located in Miami with the same address and represented by the same lawyer, recycle 11 million domain names. After years of complaints, ICANN has finally begun moving on the problem. On April 17 ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organization voted to make the ICANN 20-cent fee non-refundable. If the ICANN board ratifies this position in June, those top three squatters will be getting a monthly bill for $2.2M. News of the ICANN changes has been applauded by legitimate Internet businesses, tired of having to choose nonsense names because all the good ones have been squatted. ICANN has published an analysis of the economics of ending domain squatting."

An anonymous reader writes "ICANN is finally taking action against Domain Registrar GoDaddy's controversial 'lockdowns'. GoDaddy has long had a policy of 'locking down' domain names for 60 days after a customer updated their contact details. This put customers in a Catch 22 position: ICANN requires customers keep their contact details up to date, or risk having the domain forfeited. Yet during the lockdown period the customer is prevented from transferring the domain from GoDaddy to another registrar. If the lockdown ran over the domain's expiry date, customers were forced to renew with GoDaddy or lose the domain. ICANN proposes to ban this practice. ICANN who is charged with overseeing the Internet has long been accused of giving domain registrars a free ride. But recently after ICANN failed to discipline Network Solutions over a front-running scam, they found themselves both on the wrong end of a lawsuit by lawyers Kabateck Brown Kellner. Is ICANN's action a signal of increased vigilance in policing registrars, or is it a PR move paving the way for a complete removal of US Government oversight?"

jehnx writes "Following Google's crackdown on 'domain tasters', ICANN has voted unanimously to eliminate the free period that many domain buyers have been taking advantage of. At the same meeting they also discussed Network Solutions' front running but took no action on it."

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "On February 4th, IANA will add AAAA records for the IPv6 addresses of the four root servers. With this transition, it will finally be possible for two internet hosts to communicate without using IPv4 at all. Certain obsolete software may face compatibility problems due to the change, but those issues are addressed in an ICANN report (pdf)."

An anonymous reader writes "The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has essentially put off consideration of a proposal that would have dissolved a requirement that domain name registrars collect and display personal information about people who register Web site names. Privacy activists said the WHOIS database has become a data-mining dream for marketers and spammers, to say nothing of stalkers and harassers. Companies representing some of the world's biggest brand names appear to have prevailed, arguing that any change to the current system would interfere with law enforcement investigations and trademark disputes. In the end, ICANN voted 7-17 to table the issue in favor of further studies on the privacy impact of the WHOIS database."

Tech.Luver sends us word that, hot on the heels of reports that Verisign may be planning to sell DNS root server lookup data, ICANN has opened an investigation into a suspected practice by registrars it calls "domain name front running." The suspicion is that insiders at some registrars are using information from whois searches to snatch up desirable domain names before interested customers can register them. Here is ICANN's announcement of the investigation (PDF). ICANN asks that anyone who suspects they have been victimized by domain name front running to email them with details.

Tech.Luver sends us word that, hot on the heels of reports that Verisign may be planning to sell DNS root server lookup data, ICANN has opened an investigation into a suspected practice by registrars it calls "domain name front running." The suspicion is that insiders at some registrars are using information from whois searches to snatch up desirable domain names before interested customers can register them. Here is ICANN's announcement of the investigation (PDF). ICANN asks that anyone who suspects they have been victimized by domain name front running to email them with details.

rprins writes "In what is perhaps a reaction to recent Homeland Security demands, a strategic report by ICANN suggests that it should take on the model of a private international organization (PDF). That would make ICANN immune from US law and regulations. However, it's unlikely that the Bush administration would grant ICANN these privileges. So the organization might opt to relocate to Switzerland where such privileges are easier to attain."

tinkertim writes "ICANN is re-evaluating the scope and purpose of its accreditations, apparently sparked by the recent collapse of garage domain name registrar Registerfly. In a press release dated March 21, 2007, President and CEO of ICANN, Dr Paul Twomey is quoted as saying : 'What has happened to registrants with RegisterFly.com has made it clear there must be comprehensive review of the registrar accreditation process and the content of the RAA.' Dr. Twomey is blaming (in part) 'weaknesses in the RAA' for severe and undue hardships that many registrants encountered when trying to transfer names away from the failing registrar, Registerfly. Many new points to be discussed include allowing registrants to view the performance of registrars in an 'independent comparative way', as well as new language to allow ICANN to forcibly intercede in the face of wide spread, persistent and consistent complaints. 10 good points for discussion are listed by Dr. Twomey in the release, who invites all ICANN stakeholders to participate in re-evaluating the RAA. Registerfly, the catalyst for this re-write does not officially lose their accredited status until March 31, 2007, and continues to display the ICANN seal on their web site."

Punker22 writes "Effective immediately ICANN has terminated RegisterFly.com's accreditation. Between now and 31 March RegisterFly is required to unlock and provide all necessary Authinfo codes to allow domain name transfers to occur. Any and all registrants wishing to transfer away from RegisterFly during this period should be allowed to do so efficiently and expeditiously. 'Terminating accreditation is the strongest measure ICANN is able to take against RegisterFly under its powers,' Dr. Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN said today."

Off the Rails writes "The BBC reports on the results of a successful test of non-ASCII domain names on Internet-equivalent hardware (pdf) carried out last October. The next stage is to plug the system into the net, and if it still works, it could go live sometime next year. 'Early work on the technical feasibility of using non-English character sets suggested that the address system would cope with the introduction of international characters tests were called for to ensure this was the case ... Also needed are policy decisions by Icann on how the internationalised domain names fit in and work with the existing rules governing the running of the address books. Icann is under pressure to get the international domain names working because some nations, in particular China, are working on their own technology to support their own character sets.'"

Off the Rails writes "The BBC reports on the results of a successful test of non-ASCII domain names on Internet-equivalent hardware (pdf) carried out last October. The next stage is to plug the system into the net, and if it still works, it could go live sometime next year. 'Early work on the technical feasibility of using non-English character sets suggested that the address system would cope with the introduction of international characters tests were called for to ensure this was the case ... Also needed are policy decisions by Icann on how the internationalised domain names fit in and work with the existing rules governing the running of the address books. Icann is under pressure to get the international domain names working because some nations, in particular China, are working on their own technology to support their own character sets.'"

daringone writes "ICANN released a statement that says they "...cannot comply with any order requiring it to suspend or place a client hold on Spamhaus.org or any specific domain name" They do, however leave the door open for the registrar that registered the domain name to then be forced to turn the lights off for Spamhaus."

mrogers writes "The International Herald Tribune is reporting that ICANN's contract has been renewed for the next five years. This means the non-profit corporation, which is responsible for allocating IP addresses and administering the top level of the Domain Name System, will not become independent from the U.S. Department of Commerce until at least 2011. The contract is also available as a PDF."

netrover writes "CircleID is reporting on the latest developments on the .XXX top-level domain as the related ICANN meeting is currently underway in Welligton, New Zealand. From the article: 'The .XXX TLD was widely expected to receive its final approval at the ICANN's last meeting held in Vancouver about 4 months earlier but the discussion was unexpectedly delayed as the organization and governments requested more time to review the merits of setting up such a domain.' But as it has been reported, it appears the discussions at ICANN Wellington are in limbo once again."

Allnighterking asks: "Within the last 24 hours I've been the unwitting victim of a new practice by any number of domain registrars. The concept of pre-selling domain names before they expire. Go to any of the more popular domain registrars and start searching for domain names. You will find dozens of them for sale -with the date they will expire clearly listed-. In my case yes, I was negligent in not renewing. I also did not receive notice that it was to expire either. The day after it expired (or more like 8 hours after). I found out that I was no longer the owner of a domain I've owned for over 3 years, that this domain is now the 'property' of a domain squatter selling google adds on my hard earned search engine status. What can be done? Do we have any recourse?" "Perhaps this is just another case of ICANN , you can't.

Apparently, the sale of expired domains is big business. See this google search for more. It leaves one to wonder what would have happened a few years ago when Hotmail expired. Would Microsoft have been stuck? Or would they be doing what I've been asked to do: pony up 20k to get my domain back!"

GeorgeK writes "ICANN hasn't posted it on their website yet, but according to one of their board members, the .tel top-level domain was approved." notellmo.tel is going to be one of the first domains sold.

GeorgeK writes "ICANN hasn't posted it on their website yet, but according to one of their board members, the .tel top-level domain was approved." notellmo.tel is going to be one of the first domains sold.

kyndig writes "Just what is the 'spirit of internet naming?' ICANN can tell you, as they are the naming experts. In a recent CNN article, ICANN states EnCirca Domain Register is violating the spirit of internet naming by reselling .pro names. The report states that in early 2000, ICANN allowed 3rd level domains (foo.bar.pro) to be sold. Later, ICANN allowed 2nd level domains (foo.pro) to be sold for .pro as well. The restriction to this selling was that a user must have the 3rd level domain first. There are no reseller checks or usage enforcement other than the request to own a 3rd level domain from ICANN. EnCirca president plans to continue reselling 2nd level .pro domains, unless ICANN places a restriction on doing so."

EyeMyke writes "As reported on News.com, ICANN has approved the .jobs and .travel domains, and is pending decision on .asia, .mail, .tel, and .xxx. One has to ask 'Will these new domains actually prove useful, or is ICANN just avoiding the real issues confronting them in regards to regulating domain registration?'" We've covered both of these domains before, but it would seem they are even more-approved now, or at least the process is important enough to warrant an official announcement from ICANN.

belmolis writes " The New York Times is reporting that the bidding is on for the .net domain currently administered by VeriSign. VeriSign's current contract expires June 30th; applications are due today. Three companies are known to be interested: NeuStar, which currently manages .biz, Afilias, which manages .info, and Denic eG, a non-profit that manages the German .de domain. ICANN is bending over backward to avoid any suggestion of bias due to its conflict with VeriSign over VeriSign's Site Finder "service" and has appointed an independent team to evaluate the applications. VeriSign has been lobbying hard to keep the domain and is reported to have received letters of support from Microsoft and IBM."

Cpyder writes "ICANN has decided to go forward with the implementation of two new top level domains, namely .mobi (for mobile use, sponsored by Nokia and T-Mobile) and .jobs (for job sites). The ICANN Board meetings regarding the approval are available. It is not yet known when these domains will be available for registration, as this decision merely starts the technical and business negotiations for terms under which these domains will be registered. Normally the domains should become active somewhere next year. Several other new TLDs are still up for discussion. These include .asia, .mail, .tel and .xxx. Last October, ICANN approved .travel and .post. More on these new TLDs at PCWorld and Google News."

Cpyder writes "ICANN has decided to go forward with the implementation of two new top level domains, namely .mobi (for mobile use, sponsored by Nokia and T-Mobile) and .jobs (for job sites). The ICANN Board meetings regarding the approval are available. It is not yet known when these domains will be available for registration, as this decision merely starts the technical and business negotiations for terms under which these domains will be registered. Normally the domains should become active somewhere next year. Several other new TLDs are still up for discussion. These include .asia, .mail, .tel and .xxx. Last October, ICANN approved .travel and .post. More on these new TLDs at PCWorld and Google News."

Tanktalus writes "Netcraft seems to have a little ditty about new rules from ICANN that take effect on Friday making it easier to hijack domain names. Essentially, if someone tries to take your domain, and you don't answer within 5 days, they now assume you are okay with the transfer. Previously, the default answer was no, and you had to explicitly state your acceptance of the domain transfer. Owners of small domains, beware: no more computerless vacations that last more than 4 days at a time!"

Iphtashu Fitz writes "The Associated Press is reporting that ICANN is nearing approval of two new top level domains: .travel and .post. The Universal Postal Union in Bern, Switzerland, wants ".post" for national postal services, local post offices, business partners and stamp collectors around the world. Private companies that provide postal services, such as Federal Express and UPS, also would be eligible. The Travel Partnership Corp., a New York-based trade group, seeks ".travel" for travel agents, airlines, bed and breakfast operators, tourism bureaus and others in the travel industry. ICANN is also considering eight other TLD's including .asia, .eu, and .jobs but they haven't progressed as far as .travel and .post. More information here."

ResQuad writes "ICANN apparently feels left out in all the recent DNS changes by Network Solutions and company, so they have announced their own series of changes. This time in the form of Inter-Registrar Transfer policy changes. They are suposedly going to make it more convenient to change registrars."

Decius6i5 writes "ICANN is accepting public comments on its three whois privacy and accuracy working groups until July 5th. Some of the proposals from the third working group, on improving whois accuracy, have been described as hostile to internet users. The working group proposes that if DNS Whois registration data for a domain is inaccurate, the domain should be immediately placed on hold, and cancelled if the error is not corrected within 15 days. An article on Circle ID suggests that the DNS Whois system is not the best way to share contact information for networks, and that ICANN should focus its efforts on improving IP Address Whois instead. What do you think?"

Decius6i5 writes "ICANN is accepting public comments on its three whois privacy and accuracy working groups until July 5th. Some of the proposals from the third working group, on improving whois accuracy, have been described as hostile to internet users. The working group proposes that if DNS Whois registration data for a domain is inaccurate, the domain should be immediately placed on hold, and cancelled if the error is not corrected within 15 days. An article on Circle ID suggests that the DNS Whois system is not the best way to share contact information for networks, and that ICANN should focus its efforts on improving IP Address Whois instead. What do you think?"

Joel Rowbottom writes "The first public draft criteria for the redelegation of the .net gTLD to Verisign's successor (due on 30th June 2005) to a new registry operator is out, and the public comments period commenced on 28th May.It's pretty similar to the .org redelegation criteria. The ICANN announcement is here and gives opportunity to submit comments prior to the final procedure which will be posted at the end of June."

Joel Rowbottom writes "The first public draft criteria for the redelegation of the .net gTLD to Verisign's successor (due on 30th June 2005) to a new registry operator is out, and the public comments period commenced on 28th May.It's pretty similar to the .org redelegation criteria. The ICANN announcement is here and gives opportunity to submit comments prior to the final procedure which will be posted at the end of June."

Thing I am writes "The proposed 2004-5 budget for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has hit a snag - the rest of the world is refusing to pay its share of the bill. ICANN last week proposed a budget of $15.8m for next year, nearly twice as much as its current annual expenditure."

An anonymous reader asks: "I recently found an article at cnn.com about ICANN considering new top level domains. Some of the proposed TLDs have already been introduced by YOUCANN such as .xxx and have been available to the public at select registrars such as new.net for quite some time. If ICANN incorporates already existing TLDs how will this impact those who have already registered for domain on these TLDs? What implications does this have and how will the ramifications impact how businesses view and utilize the web?"

Internet Ninja writes "The UN/ITU-organized World Summit on the Information Society currently happening in Geneva, and in attendance is Paul Twomey from ICANN, who has been ejected from a preparatory meeting, along with all other non-governmental observers. Obviously Twomey wasn't happy about that, saying: 'At ICANN, anybody can attend meetings, appeal decisions or go to ombudsmen. And here I am outside a UN meeting room where diplomats, most of whom know little about the technical aspects, are deciding in a closed forum how 750 million people should reach the Internet. I am not amused.'" We've previously reported on this meeting, which may help decide governance of the Internet, albeit in the longer-term.

NickFitz writes "The Register has an article on the forthcoming World Summit on the Information Society, organised by the International Telecommunications Union. It seems that the United States, Europe and English-speaking partners are happy to let ICANN carry on running the show, while developing nations would prefer control to be handed over to the ITU. As the second stage of the process isn't due until November 2005, it could be some time before we see any changes."

Steve Loughran writes "It's been pretty quiet in public on the SiteFinder front, but it does not mean that VeriSign are accepting defeat. On October 15, the ICANN Security and Stability committee met to discuss it, as can be seen from the long transcript. The new item from this is a VeriSign review of Site Finder, which is very interesting." Loughran further analyzes the Verisign presentation, below.

Some key points:

1. English-only responses only merits a 'moderate' response. I am sure the rest of the world thinks their language is only 'moderately' important.
2. A lot of problems are viewed as minor, fixable with 'user education' or 'application patch'. I wonder if DNS patches were the application VeriSign expected us to patch?
3. Apparently most spam doesnt forge sender domains; only 3-5%. So checking domain validity doesn't help much as an effective spam filter. A SpamAssassin representative commented that there are so few invalid domains in their corpus is that they get filtered earlier, so this data may be bogus.
4. An acknowledged troublespot could be automated HTTP programs getting confused by the new responses, but they hadn't heard of that, and using HTTP over port 80 in this way by automated tool is discouraged according to BCP 56 .
5. User studies liked it, but since the core finding was "there's more functionality than you get with a 404 so it's helpful for me", the study may have been flawed. Site Finder did nothing for 404 pages, only for unknown hosts.
6. Most of the problems with services such as SMTP relate to misconfigured systems, and these did not show up with the small scale tests VeriSign tried.

After the presentation, the transcript shows some good feedback from the audience -ripping into the end user survey, for example, and trying to understand the relationship with other registrars. It is notable that the only two user groups considered are (a) registrars and (b) end users. The wants and needs of people who implement networked applications or support them are neglected because we are seemingly invisible.

I myself am most offended by the "we shouldn't be automating access over port 80" comment. Hello? VeriSign? What do you think Web Services are?

While Site Finder was up, I tested how SOAP stacks handled misconfigured addresses: the results are published on xml.com. Both SOAP stacks tested choked on the 302 response, giving errors to the clients that are nowhere near user intelligible. So VeriSign are making things harder, despite their apparent obliviousness or denials. I shall be sharing my data with VeriSign, and encourage anyone else to do the same."

Steve Loughran writes "It's been pretty quiet in public on the SiteFinder front, but it does not mean that VeriSign are accepting defeat. On October 15, the ICANN Security and Stability committee met to discuss it, as can be seen from the long transcript. The new item from this is a VeriSign review of Site Finder, which is very interesting." Loughran further analyzes the Verisign presentation, below.

Some key points:

1. English-only responses only merits a 'moderate' response. I am sure the rest of the world thinks their language is only 'moderately' important.
2. A lot of problems are viewed as minor, fixable with 'user education' or 'application patch'. I wonder if DNS patches were the application VeriSign expected us to patch?
3. Apparently most spam doesnt forge sender domains; only 3-5%. So checking domain validity doesn't help much as an effective spam filter. A SpamAssassin representative commented that there are so few invalid domains in their corpus is that they get filtered earlier, so this data may be bogus.
4. An acknowledged troublespot could be automated HTTP programs getting confused by the new responses, but they hadn't heard of that, and using HTTP over port 80 in this way by automated tool is discouraged according to BCP 56 .
5. User studies liked it, but since the core finding was "there's more functionality than you get with a 404 so it's helpful for me", the study may have been flawed. Site Finder did nothing for 404 pages, only for unknown hosts.
6. Most of the problems with services such as SMTP relate to misconfigured systems, and these did not show up with the small scale tests VeriSign tried.

After the presentation, the transcript shows some good feedback from the audience -ripping into the end user survey, for example, and trying to understand the relationship with other registrars. It is notable that the only two user groups considered are (a) registrars and (b) end users. The wants and needs of people who implement networked applications or support them are neglected because we are seemingly invisible.

I myself am most offended by the "we shouldn't be automating access over port 80" comment. Hello? VeriSign? What do you think Web Services are?

While Site Finder was up, I tested how SOAP stacks handled misconfigured addresses: the results are published on xml.com. Both SOAP stacks tested choked on the 302 response, giving errors to the clients that are nowhere near user intelligible. So VeriSign are making things harder, despite their apparent obliviousness or denials. I shall be sharing my data with VeriSign, and encourage anyone else to do the same."

An anonymous reader writes "After .COM and .NET started using a wildcard, the internet community busily started creating patches to various pieces of software to circumvent this. It was said that this was a grave problem to the internet. Several official BIND patches were announced over the next few days. However, it turns out they weren't necessarily too well thought through. Usage of the patch unexpectedly broke at least 7 Top Level Domains, ISC announced 3 weeks later, after users started having problems. The .NAME registry has sent a formal letter to ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Comittee to warn against using the BIND patch, which they will look into in their next meeting. The intention may have been good, but... Stability? Anyone?"

An anonymous reader writes "After .COM and .NET started using a wildcard, the internet community busily started creating patches to various pieces of software to circumvent this. It was said that this was a grave problem to the internet. Several official BIND patches were announced over the next few days. However, it turns out they weren't necessarily too well thought through. Usage of the patch unexpectedly broke at least 7 Top Level Domains, ISC announced 3 weeks later, after users started having problems. The .NAME registry has sent a formal letter to ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Comittee to warn against using the BIND patch, which they will look into in their next meeting. The intention may have been good, but... Stability? Anyone?"

Froomkin writes "ICANN this morning announced that it sent VeriSign an ultimatum: pull sitefinder by tomorrow evening or we'll sue. Details and links to discussion of the contractual and legal issues in ICANN Throws Down the Gauntlet to VeriSign on Sitefinder at ICANNWatch." Update: 10/03 19:29 GMT by M : Verisign blinked.

Froomkin writes "ICANN this morning announced that it sent VeriSign an ultimatum: pull sitefinder by tomorrow evening or we'll sue. Details and links to discussion of the contractual and legal issues in ICANN Throws Down the Gauntlet to VeriSign on Sitefinder at ICANNWatch." Update: 10/03 19:29 GMT by M : Verisign blinked.

An anonymous reader writes "According to article at InfoWorld, ICANN has scheduled a "fact-gathering meeting" concerning Verisign's wildcarding of the .com and .net Top Level Domains on Oct. 7 in Washington, D.C. Comments about Site Finder can be sent to the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee at secsac-comment@icann.org. Here's your chance to be heard."

dmehus writes "VeriSign's Naming and Directory Services division has written to ICANN President and CEO Paul Twomey regarding the recent advisory concerning VeriSign's DNS wildcard redirection service. In the letter, VeriSign's Rusty Lewis says that they are open to independent and objective technical concerns expressed by various Internet bodies; they have formed their own "independent" panel of industry leading experts to produce its own, separate report; and they will not voluntarily suspend SiteFinder. It's a very terse response, and frankly, I'd have expected more from them. Slashdot readers are encouraged to visit ICANNWatch for in-depth, expert discussion on this and other issues."

dmehus writes "VeriSign's Naming and Directory Services division has written to ICANN President and CEO Paul Twomey regarding the recent advisory concerning VeriSign's DNS wildcard redirection service. In the letter, VeriSign's Rusty Lewis says that they are open to independent and objective technical concerns expressed by various Internet bodies; they have formed their own "independent" panel of industry leading experts to produce its own, separate report; and they will not voluntarily suspend SiteFinder. It's a very terse response, and frankly, I'd have expected more from them. Slashdot readers are encouraged to visit ICANNWatch for in-depth, expert discussion on this and other issues."

MrClever writes "In this article over at the Sydney Morning Herald (AU), it looks as though ICANN may actually be doing something about the VeriSign changes to .com and .net TLD's. Apparently, while they have been noticably quiet, they have been reviewing community reaction and analysed data from a technical perspective. Here's hoping ICANN pull the plug on VeriSign's TLD administration rights!" And TALlama writes "RSS.com.com (dear $DIETY, will it ever stop?) is reporting that ICANN has asked VeriSign 'to voluntarily suspend the service' of wildcarding DNS, 'pending further study.' Calling it a 'service' is a little bit of a misnomer. If I punch people in the face, can I call that a service, too?"