[council] Resolution regarding Verisign Registry Site Finder Service

[Cade,Marilyn S - LGCRP]

Dear fellow Councilors

As described in an earlier post to Council, I hereby present a resolution to Council, proposing action by the ICANN board regarding a new registry service related to typos in domain names: 


The resolution which follows describes the situation and proposes ICANN board action and further steps by the community.
I urge an affirmative vote at our upcoming Council meeting. Because all are mentioned in the resolution, I will forward copies to the ASO leadership, the ALAC, the ccNSO launching Committee, the IAB, the Security and Stability Advisory Committee on this resolution, and the ICANN President and staff. 
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"Whereas, the primary and overriding imperative to ICANN's mission is the stability and reliability of the global Internet. All other responsibilities must support and respect that overriding responsibility. 

Whereas, ICANN also has other responsibilities which must co-exist with this primary responsibilty, and which include competition, transparency, bottom up consensus policy development and informed participation by the broad community.

Whereas, the global Internet is dependent upon standards and practices that are undertaken and agreed to by the private sector through collegial and bottom up, consensus based processes, embodied in RFCs. Innovation in services at the "edge" of the Internet, which do not interfere with core technical assumptions of the Internet's operation are to be encouraged; changes at the core of the Internet's fundamental assumptions cannot be undertaken lightly, without notice, and cannot be tolerated if they harm basic resolvability, reliability and stability of the Internet. 

Whereas, infrastructure providers of the global Internet include network connectivity providers, ISPs of all sizes, web hosting companies, enterprise operators who operate resolvers and routers, gTLD registries and registrars, ccTLD registries. These entities share a common and important responsibility of adherence to a common bond of "do no harm" to the Internet's core reliability and stability. This responsibilty is a basic imperative which must underpin even contractual obligations, and is a responsibility of all infrastructure providers. 

Whereas, the introduction of the new registry level service entitled Site Finder, introduced by Verisign Registry, has raised significant questions from ISPs, network operators, spam filtering users, and others about its negative and harmful impact on applications on the Internet, and on the infrastructure providers, and on the reliabity and stability of the Internet.

Whereas, there was no notice, comment, nor consultation with affected infrastructure entities by Verisign Registry. These affected entities are experiencing related complaints, demands on their staff time and resources to deal with problems, and failures in applications software; 

Whereas, failing to address these concerns responsibly and responsively, creates a concern to governments who may be forced to intervene into such situations, thus threatening private sector leadership of the Internet, 

Whereas, significant questions of harm to the stability and reliability of the Internet are raised in a variety of technical forums

Therefore, the gNSO Council:

Resolves: 
The President and ICANN Board should immediately request Verisign to withdraw this service for a period of 90 days, during which time the following activities are advised and will be undertaken, on a fast track process:
1) Request that the Stability and Security Advisory Committee of ICANN, in conjunction with representation from the gNSO, ccNSO/Launching Committee, ALAC, ASO,and the IAB create a "committee" to undertake an assessment of the impact of such service upon the stability and reliability of the Internet. Liaison participation should be invited from the GAC, and other relevant entities of ICANN. A report to the ICANN board, and to the participating entities of ICANN should be prepared for comment and provided by a date certain, within a 90 day period. The recommendation should be posted for comment on the ICANN site for the requisite period of time, and a final report presented to the board within the 90 day period. During this time, the service should be discontinued. 

2) The community should cooperate, in a positive and productive manner, in documenting the impact experienced by the service to date, to inform and educate the working group in their deliberations. Such information should be made available via an ICANN comment process, however, a staff developed format should be recommended, so that the input is organized, coherent, and fact based. 

3) Upon the conclusion of the work of the "committee" and taking into account the input and advice of the entities identified above in (1), the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee should provide  written public advice to the Board, regarding the impact of the said service on the stability and reliability of the Internet.