important: New ICANN-VeriSign agreement

[Milton Mueller]

I have been sent a notice from Paul Twomey, CEO of ICANN, about its
recent agreement with VeriSign settling the litigation between the two
parties.

This is an important agreement, because it does more than settle the
Sitefinder litigation.

ICANN and VeriSign viewed this litigation as a bargaining situation.
ICANN entered into a bargain with VeriSign regarding the future of the
.com registry and the management of the root zone.
The registry agreement was modified to give VeriSign longer term
control of .com and to raise its prices (although I have not looked at
the details yet - consider this second hand info).

Settlement agreement
http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/ICANN-VRSN-settlement-agreement-2005.pdf


New .com agreement
http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/index-2005.htm

ICANN is asking for constituency comment on this agreement. Comments
are open for 24 days. I will prepare something for the constituency. In
the meantime, Your comments are welcomed.

Dr. Milton Mueller
Syracuse University School of Information Studies
http://www.digital-convergence.org
http://www.internetgovernance.org