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Due to ICANN's past behaviour, this is already being done. See OpenNIC, AlterNIC, and The Pacific Root. Now, if more ISP's would support them ...

To really apply negative reinforcement to Verisign, the ISPs need to block not just sitefinder.verisign.com, but *.verisign.com, and drop the Verisign controlled root servers from the root hints file.

Good questions.

As for splitting, there are already several alternate roots. In addition to Alternic, there's OpenNIC and Pacific Root. People are using these only voluntarily, and the different roots cooperate to some extent. For example, most will only establish a new TLD if no other root is using that TLD, and most will peer TLDs for the other roots so you can see the entire composite alternate namespace. This is strictly voluntary, however.

It might be that some day the alternate roots cooperate less. We can get a glimpse of how this works through the issue of the .biz TLD. Pacific Root had a .biz TLD years before the official Internet .biz TLD. People had paid Pacific Root for this privilege. Pacific Root decided to maintain their own .biz TLD, such that if you are connected to them you will see their .biz, and if you are connected to the real Internet root servers, you'll see the official .biz. Meanwhile, they peer all the other official TLDs so that you see them. Other alternate roots made independent decisions. OpenNIC, for example, chose to continue peering the Pacific Root .biz and ignore the official one. Verisign et al can be viewed as a non-cooperative alternate root server, and this shows how a group of independent voluntary alternatives can coexist.

As for cost, at the moment OpenNIC is free to use (I don't know about the others). I think most alternate TLDs have free registration, though I know that Pacific Root charges (and apparently makes money) for registering in the TLDs they created. If more people started using these alternate roots and costs went up, the alternate roots could start charging more registration fees, or charge users; people could choose among alternatives based on price, quality, and access to the TLDs they want to see. Competition would be good, though some alternates might have to shut down. Think about who finances the yellow pages: the users, or the people who are registered. Also, it's possible this could be entirely financed through voluntary donations.

It's conceivable we could completely escape from Verisign just through exercising our free will to choose alternate roots.

You *are* free to do this now. There are several alternative roots, or you are free to build your own - just like the early days of the internet when there was no centralized control.

• OpenNIC
• AlterNIC
• The Pacific Root

If you run your own DNS server (even if just for your own use), give them a try.

People are actually running their own nameservers outside of ICANN in a quite ordered way - there's a host of .ocean, .dot, .children, and similar top level domains out there - all you need to do is use one of those nameservers. Go take a look at OpenNIC - through which you can also use the top level domains from PacificRoot and AlterNIC.

I use OpenNIC's root servers, which also recognize Pacific Root's earlier claim to .biz, so I have the same "problem."

Maybe I will find it inconvenient, but this problem was created by ICANN's arrogance and defyance of the will of the people. It's their problem, not mine. You can turn it around too: this will be inconvenient for people who are duped into buying .biz domains, because some people will not be able to reach them. Maybe the amount of business they lose won't be enough to matter. Or maybe they will decide it does matter, and sue their registrars for fraud. Whatever; it's their problem.

I think the Right Thing to do is to keep installing DNS servers that use alternate roots, and go ahead and balkanize .biz so that it's useless to everyone. Scorched earth. Because if ICANN doesn't suffer political damage as a consequence of their defiant act, then they will just repeat such acts. Maybe next time, ICANN will collide with .geek or .parody. It's all about power and their insistence that There Can Be Only One.

...considering there's no "prior use" of the .biz tld.

Have you checked to make sure? .biz has been around for quite a while; Neuland's customers are late-comers.

Search engines don't work!
was that a little fast for you? sorry, I will say it again.

Search engines don't work!
Google think they are doing very well, having nearly 10% of the possible sites indexed, and sorted by number of other sites linking to them. that is 1 site in 10. How about the other 90%? are you going to make 100% coverage by search engines mandatory, or at least offer to fund this? and once they reach 100%, we will be having the same argument again about how search engines are "bad" because they rank one site above another.

I am not saying I approve of Verisign's latest example of how they will shit on the entire internet to squeeze a few extra pennies out of us - or the domain arguments, or the new TLDs. however, the main thing to remember is that they are the *default* root server. if enough of the ISPs start to use alternate roots (and new.net has signed up some already, not to mention that ORSC and Pacific Root have been around for years) then maybe they will realise a mandate from the US government that the US government doesn't even realise it has given, might not guarantee they are even in business two or three years from now... but at least they can fall back on selling certificates that say "microsoft" ;)
--

And to answer your question, no, the issue was never resolved. ICANN very clearly decided to simply ignore the existence of alternate roots and prior claims to TLD strings. (though they are inconsistent in this stance. Their decision not to approve a new .web TLD was clearly related to the existence of a prior claim by Image Online.

Yet another example of heavy handed authoritarianism on the part of ICANN, and yet another reason for all of us who care about the DNS as a public resource to dwitch our DNS to an alternate root system. Visit the OpenNIC to find out how. It's easy.

Claim your namespace.

It's far far too late to save .org and .net, I say on slashdot.org, and ICANN should admit it. Perhaps new domains such as .npo and .isp could be handled better.

Atlatantic Root Network, Inc. (http://www.biztld.net) has .NGO (registered non-governmental orgs) and .NPO (non-profit orgs). Both of these require certification of status. There are international requirements to be certified as an NGO and we are all familiar with what an NPO is...

There is a niche for TLDs such as these, and we are certainly not against having restricted TLDs. How about .NOT for those "parody" and criticism sites? It's available.

There is also a need for true gTLDs, which we will not see with this round of ICANN choices.

If people check into the availability of gTLDs which resolve to the ORSC rootzone, I think they will be pleasantly surprised.

We also have 2 gTLDs - .ONLINE and .ETC. As with .BIZ, however, they cannot be transferred once registered. So, if you are looking for multiple names to re-sell, sorry. They are meant for those who intend to use them. Before registering a name with any registrar, read Terms and Conditions so that there are NO surprises. (http://www.biztld.net/biztos.html)

There is no UDRP, but there are TM laws, so keep in mind that this is not a free-for-all. The prices are low enough for anyone to be able to register a domain name and there are rules to abide by.

Also, remember that registration services are just that - services. This is true for any registry. No one owns an address, telephone number, or domain name. It is yours to use during the registration period. If people understood this, a lot of contentiousness would disappear.

Repeat after me: It's just an address...It's just an address...

When the public is more aware of the fact that the name space really is open and that the legacy root is not the only answer, we can get back to using the Internet for everyone and not just the megacorporations who are trying to "own" something that can't be bought. It's an evolution process in its infancy.

By the way, one of the very first domains was .NOMAD. Guess what, folks. Domain names in .NOMAD are free - no charge - nada. http://www.pacificroot.com

-Leah-