[ncdnhc-discuss] Redelegation of .us Country-Code Top-Level Domain

[Jim Fleming]

http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-19nov01.htm

Redelegation of .us Country-Code Top-Level Domain

After a long governmental procurement process, on Friday, 26 October 2001, the United States Government entered an agreement with
NeuStar, Inc. to provide registry services for the .us country-code top-level domain (ccTLD), replacing VeriSign, Inc. Consistent
with this change in contracted operators, on Friday, 16 November 2001, the .us ccTLD was redelegated from VeriSign to NeuStar.

This redelegation occurred before the completion of the normal IANA requirements. The United States Government informed ICANN on 16
November 2001 that, because of complexities of U.S. procurement laws, it was not able to extend the existing arrangements with
VeriSign nor complete the necessary three-way set of communications among itself, ICANN, and NeuStar. This presented a peculiar set
of circumstances: ICANN was faced with the choice of (1) either authorizing a redelegation, or (2) creating a situation where the
event would have occurred regardless but there would be inconsistent data in the IANA database. Given ICANN's primary mission focus
on stability (and security as part of achieving stability), ICANN authorized an emergency redelegation prior to an appropriate
contract.

All parties involved are committed to complete these contractual and other arrangements as soon as practicable following the end of
the protest period (regarding the NeuStar contract) that is allowed for by U.S. law, this apparently being the earliest opportunity
that U.S. law allows the U.S. Government to participate in contract negotiations. In its contract with NeuStar, the United States
requires NeuStar to abide by the GAC principles (which require a binding written communication with ICANN), and has so committed to
ICANN directly.

A full IANA report will be posted as soon as it is complete.


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