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VeriSign To Control .com Domain Until 2012
DIY News wrote to mention a Reuters article reporting that VeriSign will control the .com domain until 2012, according to an agreement with ICANN. From the article: "The agreement settles a long-running dispute between the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, and the most powerful company under its jurisdiction. The settlement comes at a time when ICANN is under attack from China, Iran and other countries that want more direct control over the domain-name system that guides traffic around the Internet."
Coincidence? Yeah, probably, but you should call Art Bell just in case.
Verisign has been known to go around policy: who authorised .root? ICANN is known to be undemocratic and hold meetings in places where people can't access them. Could some non-profit organisation take over .com and make the internet fair again?
God forbid we should run the Internet in a way that displeases such an open and information-friendly group of countries.
They tried to start a 'service' to redirect mistyped domain names to a search engine (with ads)....
.com domain names in use, and then also the .net names.
... or any other nation/entity vying for control...?
... and I think right now its as free as it's going to be...
These same people also make 6 dollars per year for the 35 million
They are icky.
===
Of course, one has to wonder... WWCD? What would China do? (if they had control)
Mountain View, California-based VeriSign introduced a search engine in September 2003 that directed Internet users who mistype domain names like "www.example.com" to a search engine which contained advertisements
IMHO, The internet should always be 'free' (except for the cost of connection)
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
At The Register.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Uh, yeah, that Mountain View bit isn't supposed to be there, I guess it pays to edit, eh?
I guess it goes well enough, WWCD, then I show what an American company would do.
(Pause)
No, it still looks like shite.
Oh well.
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
The ICANN and VeriSign dispute about the content of the root domain name servers makes about as much sense as a dispute between Fred and Joe over which of them can park their car in Bob's driveway.
What contractual or legal obligations exist between ICANN, VeriSign, or any of the registrars and the owners of the traditionally accepted root domain name servers? Just how do ICANN or VeriSign intend to force the owners of the root DNS systems to sync their databases to the registrar's if they decide to cut out the middle man? What contractual or legal obligations requires ISPs to resolve DNS queries using the traditionally accepted root DNSs?
I'd sure like to know what these missing links are. Seems to me they are fundamental....
Bah, you fell for it. There are lots of countries-- including democratic nations of Europe-- who would like to see the 'net under a more global control. It's not a US-only club anymore, after all, and hasn't been for a long time. The poster evidently wanted to stir up specific emotions by explicitly listing China and Iran.
"All your .com domains are belong to US"
fak3r.com
...what does this solve?
ignorance will killus all --eric
Ebay didn't buy all of VeriSign, just one of the divisions...
All you have to do is watch what they are doing with the Internet control they already exercise within their own borders. Imprisoning dissidents for speaking their minds, hunting down kooky but otherwise relatively-harmless religious cults with a vengeance, creating entire ministries of government for "reeducation" of Internet "addicts."
US-based Internet corporations certainly have some things to be ashamed of... but they mostly involve complicity with the aforementioned Chinese governmental policies. The Internet may be an annoyance to Dubya's administration ("There ought to be limits to freedom!") but the Chinese government takes it well beyond the grumbling stage. They must not be given a broader role in Internet administration until they have shown that they aren't frightened to death of a few words or images on a Web page.
well, the big us corps seems to bend over backwards to get access to the chinese markets. didnt yahoo help track down a journalist's id based on a email account on their systems?
oh i forgot, thats about money, not "freedom"...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
What's everyone say now? ICANN President Paul Twomey said the settlement shows that issues involving the domain-name system are best resolved within ICANN, rather than through an international bureaucratic body. Am I missing something? Big US corporation uses threat of long, expensive US litigation to bend ICANN to its will? ICANN claims that this proves the system works, sure -- what else could they say and maintain a shred of self-respect?
But now y'all have to chose your evil: VeriSign and litigation lawyers, or the UN? Bwahahahaha!
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
suppressing our people
Stop doing business with them, then talk about how evil they are.
You can't take the sky from me...
Ebay does not own Verisign - they only bought a small devision of it. Besides, Verisign merging with eBay is like me merging with a cheeseburger.
LL
Yes, the payment division, which therefore gives them control.
Can't see how two posters actually missed that aspect, as it was the driver behind the purchase.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Oooh, lovely cracky mods this evening. HE DISSENTS! SEIZE HIM!
- Chris
Sorry, you're just plain misinformed/wrong, look at the previous 5 discussions about this very same topic, i won't detail it for you.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
It's not simply the U.S. versus the rest of the world.
China and Iran are leading proponents of setting up some sort of UN-based body to replace ICANN. The European Union wants to keep ICANN in place, but have it answer to an international group. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and I think Japan back the U.S.
Payment services, which makes them gatekeepers. Read past the headlines, please.
Verisign merging with eBay is like me merging with a cheeseburger.
This explains something, I'm quite certain of it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Who the hell modded this up? Ebay bought a very, very small part of Verisign, the part that did payment processing. No big deal. Verisign still controlls the .com, .net root servers, and that's all this article is about. Period.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Errhh... the other 15 discussions were mostly filled with anti-American tyrades that had little to do with the Internet.
Other than wanting to be a "team player" there is still no good reason for the US to give up control.
They'd be retarded. First of all, the root domain ".com" doesn't matter that much; anyone who's got a big-name .com has bought rights to it for years and years to come, and if another country tried to distrupt them, those companies would go bonkers on that country.
.co.fr; why not replace .com with .co.us?).
Secondly, Other countries already have their version of ".com", though many believe that we should follow their lead as well (.co.uk,
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
So let me get this straight:
.com until 2012, instead of 2007 BECAUSE they fucked up in the first place with that outrageous wildcard-advertising?
1. Verisign introduces wildcard
2. ICANN tells them to temporarily suspend that
3. Verisign sues, but the case gets thrown out
4. Verisign sues again and they settle that Verisign keeps its reign over
5. No ??? here, just profit.
Oh yea, and the people wonder why do I and apparently the rest of the world think that ICANN and the USA is not doing the task it had been given properly?
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Um, no. eBay bought Verisign's payment services, which means that's now part of eBay.
Your argument is like saying that if I buy a car from you, I get to determine what you have for dinner. The two things (eBay (formerly VeriSign) payment services and VeriSign controlling the registry) are completely unrelated.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
And the payment services are the keys to the registry.
And I'm an idiot? You should run for public office!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Isn't China supposed to invade Taiwan by 2012? Hmmmmmm
Life is not for the lazy.
Well, that part of the article was FUD at its best, and you're the perfect example of a naive Slashdot reader who took the bait and fell for it, so to speak.
For one, not all the world's Iran and China; admittedly those are dictatorships that you probably don't want having a say in how the Internet is governed, but the majority of the world's countries is not like that. Furthermore, the proposition wasn't that individual countries control the Internet; rather, it was suggested that an international body responsible for this be created. Kind of like the ITU, for example - which is not exactly a prime example of the devastating influence that countries like China and Iran would have, is it?
And don't even think about playing the "free speech" card - that coming from a country where an accidentally-exposed nipple on TV causes a major outrage and where the FBI goes after and tries to shut down porn websites is just ironic. If you want the USA to keep control of the Internet, at least be honest enough to admit that you like to feel that you're in power, that you have control, and that you're better than the rest of the world.
And now I'll most likely get modded down to oblivion for saying this, probably - again by people who otherwise constantly talk about free speech. Isn't it ironic...
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Exactly.
Your argument is like saying that if I buy a car from you, I get to determine what you have for dinner.
No, it's like you want to buy a car from me, but I tell you to go stuff yourself, because I'm not going to let you buy the car you want to. I'll tell you which car you can buy, but you have to keep asking, one after another, rather than me telling you which ones you are allowed to buy.
This should be no surprise, really, as VeriSign was just letting phishers and who knows what buy domains. Control the means of completing the transaction and you control who gets what.
The two things (eBay (formerly VeriSign) payment services and VeriSign controlling the registry) are completely unrelated.
You really need to think these things through before making such ridiculous claims. Why do you THINK that eBay bought that part of VeriSign? Because they like the way the cubicles are arranged? Sheesh.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
129.42.16.99
or
129.42.17.99
or
129.42.18.99
or
129.42.19.99
or
129.42.20.99
or
129.42.21.99
Please try to load-balance your requests.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Neither China nor Iran are dictatorships. Get your head out of your ass.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
in that case since we've already changed french to freedom, we might as well change cuban and china both to .com ;)
sarchasm
Because they already own PayPal, and this VeriSign thing plays into thier strategy of controlling electronic micro-payments?
One more time: eBay isn't going to have anything to do with DNS, or anything remotely like it.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Ooh! Ooh! Think of the possibilities! I want cous.co.us! And there's also rau.co.us... and vis.co.us...
Every week, maybe every day, we hear about another US-centric lawsuit based around "Intellectual Property" and licensing and a whole manner of stupid crap designed to limit access to our information-based purchases, such as DVDs or games or books.
I didn't expect anything but hypocrisy from the country that brought us the DMCA.
C17H21NO4
Why not the EU or any other number of countries that don't have despotic governments? Countries depend on the internet for a number of things, and it's only natural and sensible that they don't want to trust their vital infrastructures to Verisign or the US. Mentioning China and Iran seems like a lame attempt at scaremongering. "Imagine, the internet in the hands of China! Oh noes!"
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
eBay didn't buy Verisign's accounting department, they bought Verisign Payment Services.
Indeed.
Wild Eeep!
No, it's like you want to buy a car from me, but I tell you to go stuff yourself, because I'm not going to let you buy the car you want to.
At which point you go to the dealership next door and buy the one you want. You think Verisign had the only credit card processing around? Once they sell off that unit, they are still free to choose who processes their payments. They aren't somehow going to be forced to send all payments through eBay.
Did I say overlords? I meant protectors.
The prices for .com names may go up significantly - 7% per year.
.ewe Business Model - or - It's Just .Ewe and Me, .Kid(s) (http://www.cavebear.com/cbblog-archives/000159.ht ml)
And ICANN's slice goes up to 50cents per name per year.
All of this adds up to increased taxation on those who acquire domain name, i.e. you and me. Yet we are unrepresented in ICANN's decision-making processes. Can you say "taxation without representation"?
And if you really think about it, what is the actual cost to provide a service in which the yearly cost is that of *not* removing an entry for a database and in which the resources consumed are a few hundred bytes of disk space?
I've suggested a new domain name selling model - The
Care to enlighten us as to which country has more freedom of speech?
Europe wants to reform ICANN and bring it back to where it belongs: Geneva.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
I don't even believe that the control of .ir should be given to Iranian authorities, these fuckin bastards, all they know is how to limit people's access to any source of information which is not completely under their own control!
Now that I'm writing this many bloggers are being prosecuted in courts, around 120 newspapers/magazines have been closed by the judiciary in the past couple of years and 99% of ISPs were enforced to block whatever relates to politics and p0rn, I don't care for the latter but I used to read many online news websites in my own language and almost all of them have been blocked by now(Damn, they even blocked Orkut, Google's cache and Google translate!). I know, there are proxies out there but they are all more of a temporary workaround rather than a permanent solution.
Anyway, IMHO Internet should be govenrned by some int'l independent organization, maybe a subsidiary of UN, but governemnts of countries like Iran, China, etc. should not be allowed to vote or decide on any matter, they should just be able to attend the meetings and know what goes on and no more that that. Up until the day they learn how to care for freedom of speech, freedom of access to information and all other sorts of freedom.
PS: AFAIK The provider of the filtering system for Iran Telecommunications Inc. (IRTCI) is an american vendor and the name of the software is smartfilter! I'm not sure about this bcuz they never announce the details but if it's true me and other proponents of freedom in Iran expect US goverment to ban american vendors from helping Iran with it's evil freedom-limiting plans. and sorry if I was a bit off-topic, I'm just mad at what goes on!
Convert all that into IPv6!
Funny.
Don't forget mu.co.us
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
No, I'm totally serious, Plz read it.
soon you will go to any website, and it will say " get the funny gay elephant on your cell phone" just text the # 1234 i hate that, i cant believe verisign owns them, and then destroys my tv with the stupid commericals, they dont even try to offer content that people would want on their cell phones, i wish someone would destroy verisign
Does ANYONE have those?
Ive currently heard (and you will get my comments on the arguments in non-italic) .xxx domain, and not to forget: what's going on with the iraqi domain? r net_domain/?
The US doesn't mess with how its run
false: we have the whole mess with the
Well, since the current owners are in US custody (!??) its in limbo: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/30/iraq_inte
Transferring power will lead to greater Cencorship
Oh, cencorship as in preventing media to display coffins of dead soldiers? Or showing a nipple on tv? Banning Al Jazeera from reporting from iraq? Or pictures from abu ghraib? (where the public - thats us, folks - have the right to know what is actually going on).
No, my dear friends - it's time to 'fess up, and admit that there are plenty of countries - participating in the UN, as a matter of fact - that does the whole "Freedom of speech"-thing better than the US.
The UN is corrupt
Arguably the UN has had its share of scandals - it's no suprise since any political body draws the attention of people out for personal gain. This is solved by actively participating, and demanding increased opaquity of how the UN (or any political body - the US for example) is run. I won't even go into the whole Haliburton, Bush AWOL, Saudi connection, Campain Contributions and Florida vote scandals.
Historically the internet came from the US - so it should remain in US control
This one is plain dumb. Just because something is historical, doesn't mean that it neccessarily is good today.
The US runs it better (technically)0 9-14?lang=en
Not really. Ever heard of pharming? Im going to do a littel flag-waiving myself, and point out that right now Sweden is on the track to implement DNS-SEC, for examplehttp://www.nic.se/english/nyheter/pr/2005-
To keep internet democratic, the US should be in control
It IS a issue of democracy. The US has to hand over the power to a international democratic body, any other action is per definition UN-Democratic (no pun intended). I'm sorry, but arguing anything else is just moot.
It's the US responsibility to participate and to try to affect the outcome of voting on these issues in the UN. That, my friends, is how democracy is supposed to work.(and I shouldn't have to point out what democracy actually is)
I'm scared of that the rest of the world won't put the US intrests first.
Well, should they? Honestly?
The rest of the world is not, I repeat NOT, by definition Evil. Remember, North Korea, China (as is the US) are a part of the rest of the world. There are enough good countries to balance out the "bad" ones ("bad" as in the _US sense of the word).
Ok, I'll probably be modded down for this post, but before bringing out the flamethrowers, I'm actually intrested in hearing good arguments for keeping it in US control.
Regards ...
"If it can be thought up, there exists at least one person trying to make it happen for real" - Phil
its not wrong for individuals and companies to trade with individuals and companies in another country. Governments on both sides should get the hell of their way. Just because the Chinese and Iranian *governments* have human rights abuses doesn't give you the right or anyone else the right to decide who can trade *privately* with people in those countries.
Slave labour: It's just business!
You can't take the sky from me...
Perhaps the US should follow the lead of the EU and UN members on that one?
First: They're following the US lead.
Secondly, it doesn't show, but the U.S.A. is a member of the UN, a founding member no less! With a permanent seat on the security council and everything! Who'd a thunk, right?
Finally, did I say I was allright with them doing it? Or did I say to either STFU about how evil these countries are, or to stop being accomplices to what they do? That's right, the STFU one.
You can't take the sky from me...
The WWCD comment was rhetorical, allowing people to make their own conclusions on the subject, but ultimately the various countries and agencies track records speak for themselves. :)
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
Just because it's done through DNS now doesn't mean it's the only way it can be done.
~Ilyanep
To get message, take amount of carrier pigeons at each stage mod 2. Then decode binary.
The US built it, it's working fine. Leave it alone.
http://cubemonkey.net/quotes -- fortune-mod quote generator
I'll admit it, America is better than the rest of the world. Obviously, we can't trust people in other countries, since they don't even have the sense to emigrate here. There is nothing wrong with having a little nationalistic feeling - as long as you don't go overboard. Calm down with the Anti-American rhetoric - it's getting old.
Doing business with them is a much better way of bringing them around to capitalism, and then democracy and freedom, than the alternative. Plus, I like cheap stuff.
Say what? What do you think they are? Democracies? Iran has nominally democratic institutions, but it isn't a real democracy because a small group of clerics can veto anything that they regard as inconsistent with Islam and can, and have on numerous occasions, bar candidates that they don't like. Iran has a terrible human rights record, imposes a state religion, and censors the press.
As for China, again there are certain semblences of democracy, but the real power is in the hands of the Communist Party oligarchy. Elected officials have little power and you aren't allowed to run if the party doesn't like you. Labor unions are illegal. The press is censored, and the courts are openly subject to political control.
Has the US control really been so onerous to date? Any huge issues of censorship or repression?
No?
Then I don't exactly see why control should be handed over from an organization that's doing a perfectly fine job of it to some ambiguous international organization. Or is the goal to make the Internet as efficient and quick-moving as the UN?
Let each country control the root servers for it's country codes and the U.S. can start using .com.us like every other country does.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I don't think you understand what free speech is. It has nothing to do with nipples and getting modded down. My nipples, for example, do not speak, nor am I familiar with any medical literature that talks about nippular vocal abilities.
In addition, being "modded down" does not infringe upon your free speech. If you were taken to jail for your post, then we would have a free speech issue on our hands.
tS
Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here, looking through your stuff.
They aren't democracies, but more so oligarchies. Rule by a powerful few as opposed to rule by a single individual.
But after that, the domain is mine!
The FA does not say what happens after 2012.
It is too easy but wrong to assume VeriSign to *relinquish* control after 2012.
"Control until 2012" does not mean "Not control starting 2013". I think the EU are fooled.
> Isn't it ironic...
... Don't you think?
yet these people cant even find one of the evil countrys people always talk about like North Korea...
http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/002454.html
XML - A clever joke would be here if
Damn it if i had mod points theyd be on your post so fast!
Someone mod this up damn it!
XML - A clever joke would be here if
Secondly, Other countries already have their version of ".com", though many believe that we should follow their lead as well (.co.uk, .co.fr; why not replace .com with .co.us?).
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Care to enlighten us as to which country has more freedom of speech?
Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, Hungary, New Zealand, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, Austria, Latvia, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Canada, Lithuania, Portugal, United Kingdom, Benin, Cyprus, Namibia, El Salvador, Cape Verde, France, Australia, South Africa, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Jamaica, Mauritius, South Korea, Japan, Mali, Hong-Kong, Spain, Costa Rica, Italy and Macedonia.
Here's the list.
There have been many many types of government throughout history. Iran is a theocracy, China is pretty much the equivalent, but substitute Communism for Islam. Neither is a dictatorship. The fact that they are not dictatorships does not mean that they are democracies.
I don't particularly like either of them, but that's cos they suck not cos they're not democracies. I also think that the Salem region of Massachusetts sucked in 1692 to a similar degree, regardless of its democratic status.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
You know, when I get my mod points, I usually take a good look in the person who is writing something before moderating as troll or flamebait.
The fact is: everybody that passed junior high should know about the world he lives in, where are located Tunisia and Ghana, that Brasil is larger than the continental US, speaks Portuguese (not Spanish), and that Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
VeriSign lost any shred of respect from me when they implemented SiteFinder. I'm against them gaining any more power and I suspect if they're convinced of their control they will do this again.
(By the by, I think this whole "who has control" thing is really over the top anyway; nobody's going to let the Internet "disintegrate", it's far too important no matter who's in control.)
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
How long is your penis, sir?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.