[registrars] Verisign change to operation of the .com DNS lookup service

[Clint Page]

To All,

I find this whole conversation most ironic and almost comical. Many of you
have been willing to sit on the sidelines and let a group of registrars
(Domain Justice Coalition) do the heavy lifting opposing the WLS issue. We
stated at that time that the precedent being set by WLS was incredibly
dangerous and damaging to all of our businesses and consumers, REGARDLESS of
whether the WLS was a core issue for your individual company. Now, the exact
same questions that we asked about WLS are being raised about Verisign's
monopolistic new DNS service (see message below).

Rather than this being a "see I told you so" message, I would request that
the group consider Rick Wesson's statement that "We (the RC) and ICANN are
completely ineffective." The bigger question that needs to be addressed is
what is this group going to do about it? Maybe you all should rethink your
involvement, or lack of, with the Domain Justice Coalition. Verisign's
proposed WLS and new DNS service offerings are intricately linked if you
haven't realized that by now. Rest assured Verisign will be offering more
new "service offerings" in the near future, should the WLS or new DNS
wildcard service not be enough for you. If this isn't a call to action, then
I don't know what is. For those interested in getting involved and making a
tangible difference to stop these kind of practices, here are the steps that
you can take:


1. Join the Domain Justice Coalition. This is the group of registrars
actively opposing the WLS through legal and legislative action. Contact Kim
Bayliss at the Dutko Group for more information
(Kim.Bayliss at dutkogroup.com).

2. Contact your congressional representatives. Make them aware of these
practices and how they are impacting your business and consumers.

3. Support Congressional House Bill 2521 and get your elected officials to
join on as sponsors. HR 2521 would require the GAO to conduct a study of
ICANN's operating procedures and decision-making processes and report back
to Congress on their findings. The bill would impose a moratorium on ICANN's
ability to change existing rules for domain registration until the study's
completion.

Unless you believe this type of behavior by Verisign is going to stop, then
I would strongly urge you to get involved now. This divide and conquer plan
that Verisign is following is only possible when registrars are not united.
For more information on any of the above steps to get involved go to:

http://www.stopwls.com/contact_02.html

Clint Page
President and CEO
Dotster, Inc.



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-registrars at gnso.icann.org
[mailto:owner-registrars at gnso.icann.org]On Behalf Of Ross Wm. Rader
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2003 8:13 AM
To: Michael D. Palage
Cc: registrars at dnso.org
Subject: Re: [registrars] Verisign change to operation of the .com DNS
lookup service


On 9/16/2003 11:00 AM Michael D. Palage noted that:

> Ross,
>
> Thanks for the answers. I do not know about the questions being "loaded"
but
> they were meant to be tough questions (for both sides of the argument)
that
> would provide the quickest means of getting to the core issues.

I should have been clearer about that remark. I mean "loaded" in the
sense that there seems to be a presumption that the service is desirable
and places the onus on the community to demonstrate why this is a bad
thing. Verisign is the one that needs to demonstrate why this is
desirable and how the benefits to the community will exceed currently
accepted practices resolvers.

I don't think they can. Even if I am wrong and there are benefits to
doing things this way, it is simply not right to allow a corporation to
throw away 20 years of DNS best practices because they feel like it. I
want to be convinced, or I want it to go away.

--


                        -rwr