[council] Resolution regarding Verisign Registry Site Finder Service

["Cade,Marilyn S - LGCRP" <mcade@xxxxxxx>]

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. 
--

"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.