[ga] Verisign ICANN monopoly under attack

[Danny Younger <dannyyounger@xxxxxxxxx>]

>From Jay Westerdal's DomainTool's blog:

A new hope has just surfaced against the
Verisign-ICANN monopoly. ICANN granted Verisign a
contract that has no ability to end and has price
increases that are baked into the contract forever.
The new hope is an underdog watch group known as the
?Coalition for ICANN Transparency, Inc.? (CFIT) that
has filed a motion to declare the Verisign-ICANN
contract a monopoly according to the Sherman Act. This
is the third time they have brought the suit against
ICANN and Verisign. The head lawyer on the case is
Bret Fausett a sharp ICANN observer. There is not much
hope that CFIT will win against such a titan, the
other side has been able to get the case dismissed two
times before, however I think the case is very strong
and very accurate. The reason CFIT will face an up
hill battle is because ICANN and Verisign have a lot
of money to fight the lawsuit. Verisign has an extra
$20 Million a year thanks to the contract and ICANN
and VeriSign baked in a new ICANN fee that would be
assessed on VeriSign and passed on to the registrars
and ultimately passed on to consumers. This fee would
result in excess of approximately $150 million dollars
to ICANN over the contracted period of time and would
be an end run around the existing ICANN budget
approval process. The Court has already recognized
that to eliminate competitive bidding violates the
Sherman Act. The CEO of Tucows went on public record
that they could provide DotCom registry services for
$2 a name, which prompted the CEO of GoDaddy, the
world?s largest registrar, to say that GoDaddy could
do it for a dollar a name. Meanwhile the Chinese
Registry CNNIC has figured out how to do provide
global registry services for 13 cents a name per year.
There is certainly a competitive market to run the
DotCom registry.

So while the challenge is for CFIT to prove Verisign
has a Monopoly in the eyes of the court, this will be
a David vs Goliath type of fight that has a lot of
valid points. What ICANN did was to grant a contract
which goes against its own Bylaws and the Memorandum
of Understanding between ICANN and the United States
Department of Commerce, one of ICANN?s core missions
is to promote competition. The DotCom contract now
contains a ?presumptive renewal? provision, which by
its nature hinders competition. The proposed DotCom
contract, however, goes much farther than the existing
contract by strengthening the presumptive renewal and
termination provisions on behalf of VeriSign, thereby
making it virtually impossible for VeriSign to lose
the DotCom registry and impossible to reap the
benefits of competition. With price increases baked
into the contract it also makes it nearly impossible
for ICANN to take out the language of price increases.
Next time the contract is renewed ICANN is obligated
to extend the same terms and conditions and those
price increase will continue to go up faster and
faster. If that doesn?t make your blood broil then you
don?t own a domain name.

The way the current contract reads Verisign has a
monopoly and there is no way to break it. No other
Registry can bid when the contract goes up for
renewal. Prices will always go up and ICANN is
mandated to continue renewing the contract. Verisign
has a lock on ICANN and now owns the DotCom registry
forever. The only hope we have is that the
ICANN-Verisign contract is found to be a monopoly and
a truly competitive bid is allowed on the Registry
contract in the future.

Ask your Registrar to support the CFIT case
financially. Only do business with a registrar that
supports overturning the Verisign Monopoly.

http://blog.domaintools.com/2007/10/verisign-icann-monopoly-under-attack/

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