ICANN Board Member Blasts VeriSign Decision

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) violated its own bylaws and shortchanged the Internet community by approving a contract that could give VeriSign Inc. near permanent control over the ".com" addressing space, an ICANN board member said today. One of only three ICANN board members to vote against approving the controversial contract, Cisco Systems Engineer Karl Auerbach said that the US Government would be justified in stepping in to nullify the deal. "This was not a win for the Internet community. This was a win for some business interests, VeriSign in particular," Auerbach said. "The Department of Commerce has a responsibility to the citizens of the United States who have been left out of the benefits of this contract." In an early morning phone meeting today, ICANN's board of directors voted 12- 3 to approve the contract inked by VeriSign and the ICANN staff at the beginning of March. Under the deal, VeriSign will be allowed to retain back-end control over the .com registry until 2007 and beyond in exchange for surrendering its control over .org. The proposed arrangement also would give VeriSign an opportunity to maintain its hold over the popular ".net" Internet domain. News of the landmark arrangement shocked many members of the Internet addressing community, prompting sharp criticism from those who felt ICANN gave VeriSign too sweet a deal. Auerbach concurred with those criticisms, adding that he believed ICANN had failed to go through the proper internal channels in the process of ratifying the deal. But while Auerbach criticized the deal, the ICANN staff defended the contract in a conference call with reporters today, arguing that the arrangement will contribute to, rather than detract from the strength and stability of the DNS. The contract will not take effect, however, unless the US Commerce Department approves today's ICANN Board decision. ICANN, the US not-for-profit firm charged with managing the Internet's addressing system, operates autonomously from the US government, but the Commerce Department, which approved ICANN's charter, retains the power to veto ICANN decisions regarding the addressing space.