Both suits relate, at least in part, to a Wait Listing Service
(WLS) proposed last year by VeriSign, the company that controls the
database of all .com and .net domain name registrations. The
service relates to the renewal of domain names.
At present, many domain name registrars offer a service where
consumers pay a fee to 'reserve' a domain name that is already
registered. If and when that registration is not renewed, the
registrar will attempt to get it on the consumer's behalf.
No guarantee is given, and the end result is that consumers
often pay several registrars to back-order the same name. This
secondary domain name market is very competitive, and prices are
relatively low.
But VeriSign's WLS would require that all registrars apply for
expiring domain names through VeriSign, and has been criticised by
domain name registrars and resellers, who argue that the new scheme
would increase costs and kill their secondary domain name business
model.
In July last year a group of registrars and resellers, calling
themselves the Domain Justice Coalition, sought a temporary
restraining order against ICANN, challenging its failure to comply
with its own internal decision-making process requirements when
considering implementation of the WLS in the face of opposition
from domain name registrars, resellers and consumers.
The Court refused, and the case is due to go to trial later this
year, regardless of the fact that the WLS has still not been
finally approved.
The internal processes within ICANN, or the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers, have been criticised by many
organisations and governments around the world. It is widely
accepted that the internet body has deep-rooted problems, although
it is attempting to re-organise itself and a new CEO and board
members have been appointed.
But the pace of change is slow and on Thursday VeriSign took
matters into its own hands by filing a suit against ICANN alleging
that the body has overstepped its contractual authority and
improperly attempted to regulate VeriSign's business in violation
of its charter and its agreements with VeriSign.
The case is seen by many as an attempt by VeriSign to assert its
own authority as the leading internet organisation.
VeriSign alleges that ICANN has improperly attempted to become
the de facto regulator of the domain name system and in doing so
stifled the introduction of new services that benefit internet
users and promote the growth of the internet.
VeriSign states that it has attempted to work with ICANN within
an agreed upon framework to introduce new services, including
recent discussions regarding the Wait Listing Service. But over the
last several years, ICANN has failed to follow a clear, consistent
and uniform process.
Tom Galvin, vice president of VeriSign Government Relations,
said:
"The framework embodied in our contractual agreements with ICANN
strikes a careful balance between the need to give ICANN the
authority it needs to perform its technical functions and the need
to preserve a registry's flexibility to innovate and introduce new
services. ICANN has upset that balance by making assertions of
control over services and by administering its authority
inconsistently and unfairly."
VeriSign's Association for Competitive Technology (ACT)
President Jonathan Zuck commented:
"ICANN has become a black hole. Proposals for innovation go in
and nothing comes out. Services that could benefit millions of
Internet users such as internationalised domain names, wait listing
and the consolidation of domain name renewals have been bogged down
for over two years within the ICANN bureaucracy. While the need for
thorough review of new technologies is critical, the process cannot
be a black hole from which no innovation and no decisions ever
emerge."
VeriSign is also smarting from a dispute with ICANN over its
surprise launch of a controversial Site Finder service in September
2003.
The new service redirected surfers to VeriSign's Site Finder
search engine when they entered a web address that was not
registered on the internet or was inactive. The unilateral change
was made, according to VeriSign, to improve "the user web-browsing
experience."
The alteration provoked a barrage of criticism. Network
administrators accused VeriSign of seeking not to aid the misguided
web user, but rather to generate more advertising revenue from its
search engine partners. Others criticised the effect that the
changes have had on the working practices of the internet.
ICANN stepped in and, in the face of a threatened court action,
VeriSign agreed to suspend the service.
But the battle between ICANN and VeriSign has been muddied
further with the announcement on Saturday that a group of eight
registrars had filed a suit against both bodies over the WLS.
According to Derek Newman, lawyer for the group, the latest
lawsuit seeks to stop the implementation of the WLS that will
"unnecessarily and in violation of a host of consumer protection
laws, replace a method already working well."
According to the group, if the WLS were implemented it would
eliminate competition by putting VeriSign in command of
redistributing expired domain names and change the existing process
from a fee for results – where a customer pays only if the domain
is secured – to annual fees that are no more "than a bet against
the house."
"There is no need to create a monopoly when a logical market has
already emerged," Newman said.
