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.

Comments

Exactly what is bad about this?

[Mike Schiraldi]

Under the old plan, Verisign had a monopoly on being the registry for .com, .net, and .org until 2007. Now, they only have a monopoly on .com until 2007. What are you people complaining about?

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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Re:What does this mean for OpenSRS et al?

[Mike Schiraldi]

No, absolutely not. The parent post is anything but "Insightful".

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 .com, .org, and .net registry until 2004 and keep its registrar business, or it could sell the registrar and keep the registry of .com, .net, and .org until 2007.

Under the new plan, Verisign phases out control of the .org and .net registry, and in return gets to keep the .com registry until 2007 as well as continue running the registrar business.

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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American Centrism?

[_Mustang]

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..

Glacial review cycles

[e7]

"The first review will come in December 2002. At that time, dot-biz, dot-info, dot-name and dot-pro must have 10 percent share of the Web address market, or the retail unit of VeriSign must sell 25 percent or fewer of new Web addresses.
"The second review will take place in March 2004."

Obviously they don't understand how much the Internet changes in 18 months.

Market system?

[doorbot.com]

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.

Re:Verisign will be audited

[hillct]

People complain about the monsterously huge companies that manage the DNS infastructure. Well, let's face it, what small company could manage this? There is a minimum efficient scale associated with management of a system like DNS TLDs. The propogation delays introduced by distribution of registrars was bad enough. I'm not a proponant of allowing a single company to manage the system, nor am I a proponant of big government in general, but there are certain things that lend themselves to centralized management. TLDs are examples of such things. Greater overall value to the public is derived from efficient centralized management.

There certainly does need to be oversight and this solution seems to adress that issue.

--CTH

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This is almost overwhelming

[President of The US]

Just reading the abuses, back-room deals, suppression of speech, greed, and the way money controls the laws in this world on this forum alone is too much. It's overload. Every ten minutes there's another one. It makes me all to aware that the only rights I have are ones that co-incide with corporate america's interests.

It reminds me how Presidnet Lincoln responded when he told about confederate spies in his government. He said:

"It was a majestic-looking tree, and apperently perfect in every part -- tall, straight, and of immense size -- the grand old sentinel of his forest hime. One morning, while at work in his garden, he saw a squirrel run up the tree into a hole and thought the tree might be hollow, He proceeded to examine it carefully and, much to his surprise, he found that the stately tree that he had valued for its beauty and grandeur to be the pride and protection of his little farm was hollow from top to bottom. Only a rim of solid wood remained, barely sufficient to support its weight. What was he to do? If he cut it down, it would do great damage with its great length and spreading branches. If he let it remain, his family was in constant danger. In a storm it might fall, or the wind might blow it down, and his house and children be crushed by it. What should he do? As he turned away, he said sadly, 'I wish I had never seen that squirrel.'"

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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