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U.S. OKs VeriSign Domain Deal
mduell writes: "The U.S. government approved a deal allowing top Internet domain registrar VeriSign to retain control of the lucrative ".com" Web addresses, the Commerce Department said Friday." ICANNwatch has a couple of stories about the deal finally reached, and the steps taken by the Commerce Department to promote competition in the DNS.
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"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
First a giant trial about Microsoft's monopoly and then they simply grant a company a monopoly for several years??
What amazes me is that there are idiots out there who find it somehow surprising that NOT EVERY AMERICAN AGREES ON ANYTHING, and that therefore "our" actions are not always consistent. (Well, DUH!)
Not everyone thinks a Microsoft monopoly is bad. And not everyone thinks a VeriSign monopoly is good.
Endrin, if this sort of pluralism and disagreement amazes you and seem out of place, then I'm certainly glad I don't live in whatever country you do. I'd hate to live in a place where this sort of thing is unusual...
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"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
And who would get the money paid by the highest bidder? .com namespace).
Department of Commerce, I believe (since they're the ones who regulate the
But I also believe that Europeans and Japanese (and just about everybody else in the world) would not like that much.
Sure, it could go in funding for standards-promoting agencies such as IETF and W3C, but I fear that it would just be wistful thinking...
Well, real soon now we'll have seperate registries for
But i think the new regirstries will charge close to $6 as well. It's not easy to run a database of that size with zero tolerance for downtime or latency. Plus, you know, also running root DNS.
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
The part of Verisign that people seem to have a problem with is the Registrar. This is -not- a monopoly. If you don't like the customer service, don't use it.
The part of Verisign that is a monopoly is the Registry. This is not a part that any of you interact with, unless you work for a registrar.
Again, how is any of this bad? If you don't like the Verisign registrar, don't use it. If you don't like the registry, be happy with this deal, because it gives Verisign's registry -less- power.
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
There are two parts - one is the Verisign registrar, which is all 99% of the world ever interacts with. This registrar has dozens of competitors, including OpenSRS.
There's also the Verisign registry, which is what all the registrars talk to, in order to keep things in sync.
Under the old plan, Verisign could either keep control of the
Under the new plan, Verisign phases out control of the
And yes, there are strict regulations in place to keep the Verisign registry from giving special treatment to the Verisign registrar.
If you don't like the Verisign registrar, don't use it. It's not a monopoly. Only the Verisign registry is, and nobody ever complains about that.
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
A 'hack' being what DNS was in the first place.
Remember your roots. Don't be so quick to shrug off what the net was built upon for a quick buck.
http://www.paradigm.nu/icann/icannstage.html
CRAP!!
That, and the lameness filter is pretty lame.
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
The story is about them being able to retain control over the .com domain registry. So they maintain the root dns servers for it, and they are paid a fee by registrars who register domains. The concern is based on Network Solutions being a Verisign company, which could be used to their Verisigns advantage in undercutting other registrars. The article did mention that they would be audited on that though. It has nothing to do with them keeping versign.com
Not to deny the roots of the internet, but is it still appropriate that a US government body (Commerce Department) still makes these decisions? I question the right of a US body to continue to make decisions concerning what is a global resource. At the least this type of thing should go to a panel with reps from all the major countries. As we all realize by now, Corporatism appears to not only have it's roots in American society but it most strongly propelled forward by those self-same American companies.
A real shame, the vision of "the net" as held by those who created is less and less a reality every day something like this occurs..
"The second review will take place in March 2004."
Obviously they don't understand how much the Internet changes in 18 months.
Corollary to Moore's Law: The IQ of new computer owners is declining.
to ensure separation between its two functions. This smells kinda like Verisign becoming a for-profit government agency. Much like any other government agency these days.- -------
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Does this mean that all of the "other" places to register your domain names (like OpenSRS) won't be able to do it anymore? I've found everyone BUT Network Solutions to be incredibly helpful and much better priced for domain name registration. Any insight into what this means for the open competitors, anyone?
Verisign got where it is by hard work alone? Ridiculous. They got there by having a long-term US government-granted monopoly as the only registrar for years. As Network Solutions, before Verisign bought them, and before the domain registrar function was forcibly opened up to competition.
Remember how www.internic.net got redirected to Network Solutions Commercial registrar service even after competition began? How about the ongoing tales of horrible service, e-mail-loop-hell, and deliberate scarfing up of expired names. It took me months to get Network Solutions to "allow" me to transfer one of my domains to another registrar. They kept finding reasons why they couldn't process my transfer even though I'd filled out all the templates properly.
Verisign as a Registrar is about where AT&T as a phone company was in 1967 - "we're the registrar, we don't have to care". They are doing everything they can to hold on to what's left of their monopoly.
I don't know about that. I have a hard time believing the government can do anything more efficiently than the private sector. The registrars compete now, customer service should improve for all of them. As was mentioned in another post, the regestry is the only thing Verisign has a monopoly on, and from what I know the regestry has been working ok. Government is not always the best answer to everything.
These kinds of things (eg, .com control) should be auctioned off to the highest bidder... you don't just "let" someone retain monopoly power. Making them compete (bid) for the rights to that power benefits everyone.
What are some better alternatives for handling domain registration, other than having a corporation in charge?
Originally, universities were the keepers of such things. A not-for-profit such as IEEE, ACM, or even The Verisign Foundation would be able to handle the job. (The last is a made-up name, although I would not at all be surprised to hear that Verisign has such a philanthropic arm.)
The military-industry complex is more used to for-profit companies taking on these function -- it makes it easier to sue for damages if the contracted company doesn't do the job. Unfortunately, the Dept. of Commerce doesn't have an effective and measurable performance clause in the contracts...
OTOH, they are regulating in the pockets of big companies, which is of course very Republican.
There is already a plethora of sites available in the .free TLD provided by freeweb! Granted, it's as slow as serving complex ASP pages on a 386, but it gets me all the free porn I want! ;)
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I'm curious...
What are some better alternatives for handling domain registration, other than having a corporation in charge? What else would be feasible -- a government body? I think I'd prefer government in control of it, rather than a profit-motivated corporation...
Property that is Public-Paid ought to be Public-Profit. To to otherwise would be poor politics. I don't want the President to allow some pompous patriarchal person to purloin this petroleum from the people's pockets.
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I really despise these situations that cultivate political favoritism. For a historical perspective, consider the Teapot Dome Scandal For a contemporary example, refer to George W. Bush's Plans to drill Alaska: The government bought the lands from Russia. The land and the oil in it belongs to the American people. We ought to work out some way to use it's revenues for the public good, but in the past (read:teapot) land like this has been given to political friends. Geoge W. Bush has no shortage of friends in the oil business.
This sort of thing also occurs whenever a local government subsidizes sports arenas.
Now the same corrupt process is taking place with the internet. More public money thrown into private corporate pockets.
I wonder if this corporation was created for this purpose, and if so who created it? I wonder if it existed previously, and if so under what name and what sort of bidding process did it have to go through.
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
It reminds me how Presidnet Lincoln responded when he told about confederate spies in his government. He said:
Sometimes I wish I could just have my illusions back that at least some things are done fairly and justly, that someone with power cares about the rights of people who cannot reward him, that the tree isn't completely hollow.
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Stay in school, kids! Peace out, Dubya
Ya know i don't really see what the big problem is with verisign and the .com address. I do see why they shouldn't have the .org etc. but they are a .com company, why can't they keep the .com address? With the recent aimster everyones complaining about copyright stuff, but verisigns .com is thier name, right? so if they pay, like everyone else, then what's the big problem? Am i missing a big chunkc of the story?
"Shut up about my driving. You're still alive."