eWebtricity
12-18-2005, 01:01 PM
Recently a Draft Proposal was drawn by ICANN (the organization that controls the net’s domains), in which an agreement was signed to give Verisign(A Leading Registrar of Domains) full control over .com domains. This would also allow Verisign to increase the prices of domains every year without even informing ICANN.
This draft is being Vigorously opposed by one of the Net’s Leading Domain Providers 1&1 (http://1and1.com/), along with many other domain providers. They claim that the plan harms competition within the Internet industry and could negatively impact end-users worldwide.
“The current draft of the agreement practically assigns .com to VeriSign forever,” said 1&1’s Domain Expert Eric Schaetzlein, who will present the registrar community’s concerns to ICANN at its meeting this week in Vancouver. “This contradicts ICANN’s core mission to promote competition in the Internet industry, which was established in its own by-laws and in the Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. Department of Commerce.”
According to Schaetzlein, 1&1’s and the other domain registrars’ biggest concern with the proposal is the effect that the potential seven percent annual fee increases could have on global Internet users, and the fact that VeriSign can implement the price hikes without justification. Web hosts and registrars would be forced to pass on the fee increases to individual domain registrants.
“Under the terms of the current contract, which is in place until November 2007, VeriSign is required to justify any price-increase, and ICANN has to give its approval,” Schaetzlein explains. “The new wording would be a major step back. Additionally, when VeriSign had its registry license for .net renewed earlier this year, interestingly enough, a major component of their application was a significant lowering of the registration fees.”
More than 30 domain registrars worldwide have signed a statement against the draft contract, demanding major changes in the current proposal (which can be viewed at www.icann.org (http://icann.org/)). Additionally, the companies have asked ICANN’s board to comprehensively review the VeriSign settlement proposals and to hold a public hearing period—as has been common practice with other ICANN-related issues—that enables the community of Internet users to state their concerns.
Source :: W3Reports (http://w3reports.com/)
This draft is being Vigorously opposed by one of the Net’s Leading Domain Providers 1&1 (http://1and1.com/), along with many other domain providers. They claim that the plan harms competition within the Internet industry and could negatively impact end-users worldwide.
“The current draft of the agreement practically assigns .com to VeriSign forever,” said 1&1’s Domain Expert Eric Schaetzlein, who will present the registrar community’s concerns to ICANN at its meeting this week in Vancouver. “This contradicts ICANN’s core mission to promote competition in the Internet industry, which was established in its own by-laws and in the Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. Department of Commerce.”
According to Schaetzlein, 1&1’s and the other domain registrars’ biggest concern with the proposal is the effect that the potential seven percent annual fee increases could have on global Internet users, and the fact that VeriSign can implement the price hikes without justification. Web hosts and registrars would be forced to pass on the fee increases to individual domain registrants.
“Under the terms of the current contract, which is in place until November 2007, VeriSign is required to justify any price-increase, and ICANN has to give its approval,” Schaetzlein explains. “The new wording would be a major step back. Additionally, when VeriSign had its registry license for .net renewed earlier this year, interestingly enough, a major component of their application was a significant lowering of the registration fees.”
More than 30 domain registrars worldwide have signed a statement against the draft contract, demanding major changes in the current proposal (which can be viewed at www.icann.org (http://icann.org/)). Additionally, the companies have asked ICANN’s board to comprehensively review the VeriSign settlement proposals and to hold a public hearing period—as has been common practice with other ICANN-related issues—that enables the community of Internet users to state their concerns.
Source :: W3Reports (http://w3reports.com/)