ICANN, the internet’s governing body, is commencing formal contract-enforcement steps against VeriSign, based, according to its statement, “on a broad, longstanding pattern it has exhibited of failing to abide by its agreement to provide complete Whois data, and to take steps to correct reported inaccuracies in that data.”
It added that VeriSign “has exhibited a pattern of persistent violations of its contractual obligations to take reasonable steps to correct inaccurate or incomplete Whois data in spite of repeated requests and reminders by ICANN.”
VeriSign has fifteen working days to cure the breaches described in the formal notice. If the breaches are not cured in that period, then ICANN may give notice of termination of the accreditation agreement.
However, only 17 specific examples were given by ICANN and, judging by VeriSign's response to some news web sites, the company plans to fix only the 17 cited examples.
ICANN is also demanding that all domain name sellers improve their facilities for receiving and handling reports from the public about incomplete or inaccurate Whois data.
It is implementing a set of tools to streamline the process for receiving and tracking complaints about inaccurate and incomplete Whois data. Reports that are received will be forwarded to the responsible registrar for handling. A tracking mechanism will be implemented to provide registrars with periodic summaries of outstanding reports about inaccurate or incomplete Whois data and to allow them to record when reported problems have been resolved.
The new centralised on-line form for reports about Whois data for names ending in .com, .net, and .org (soon to be extended to .biz, .info, and .name) is available at:
www.internic.net
