ICANN, the Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers, has voted in favour of a new registry agreement with VeriSign. VeriSign will maintain control of the .com registry until at least 2012, if it gets the final approval from the U.S. Department of Commerce.


ICANN, the Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers, has voted in favour of a new registry agreement with VeriSign. VeriSign will maintain control of the .com registry until at least 2012, if it gets the final approval from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

“These settlement documents include a new registry agreement relating to the operation of the .COM registry. The new .COM registry agreement will now proceed to the U.S. Department of Commerce for final approval, and the entire settlement is dependent upon this approval before it is finalized.

USDOC approval is required due to the unique history of the .COM generic top-level domain and it is the only gTLD which requires such approval. If approved, this settlement will clear the way for a new and productive relationship between ICANN and VeriSign facilitating ICANN’s stewardship and technical coordination of the Internet’s domain name system”. [source]

VeriSign has administered the .com domain name space on behalf of ICANN since 2001.

The legal dispute between the two first started in 2004. At that time VeriSign alleged breach of contract.

The lawsuit contended that ICANN broke its contract with VeriSign when it prohibited and delayed the registrar from providing Internet services such as its SiteFinder and WLS, waiting-list service.

The latest agreement will end litigation between ICANN and VeriSign.

But ICANN faces a new lawsuit filed by The Coalition for ICANN Transparency (CFIT), and The World Association of Domain Name Developers (WADND), which oppose the deal.

CFIT spokesperson John Berard, said: “There will not be less litigation. There will likely be more litigation. CFIT’s suit against ICANN and VeriSign will certainly continue, especially in light of the fact that the judge in the case has upheld our antitrust claims”. [source]

 

 

 

 

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