[ga] Verisign-ICANN settlement agreement -- thumbs down

[George Kirikos <gkirikos@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

The proposed settlement agreement is at:

http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-24oct05.htm
http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/settlement-agreements.htm

After a quick first pass through the materials, it looks like ICANN
really caved in, and didn't act in the interest of domain registrants.

According to Section 7.3(d)(ii) of:

http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/com-registry-agreement-22sep05.pdf

VeriSign will be able to raise .com prices by up to 7% per year. That's
absurd, given the economies of scale they've realized running a
registry with 43 million names (see www.dailychanges.com), compared to
a much lower level when the .com registry agreement was first
negotiated years ago. Indeed, Tucows went on the record in Shanghai:

http://www.icann.org/shanghai/captioning-afternoon-30oct02.htm

"But in case there is any concern or hesitation in that regard, if any
of the registry contracted parties are unhappy with price, the central
term in any such contract, and are willing to rebid or reopen some of
the registry contracts, specifically Tucows will put an offer on the
table at a $2 a name registry price."

$2 is much less than the price .com names will be after VeriSign gets
through gouging consumer through its monopoly over .com registry
services.

It's been said before, but it bears repeating that in view of ICANN's
abysmal effort, how can they say they've not been captured by VeriSign?
Hopefully the GNSO, if ICANN is a "bottoms-up, consensus building
organization" will vocally oppose this pathetic settlement.

By the way, in the old contract, VeriSign was commited to spending $200
million in R&D:

http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/registry-agmt-appw-net-org-16apr01.htm

I had only pointed that out about a gazillion times, see:

http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/registry-agmt-appw-net-org-16apr01.htm

Since those annual reports were never made public, despite Michael
Palage's statement:

http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/ga/msg00824.html

"Give me a couple of days to look into" 

almost TWO YEARS ago, I suppose it was easier to simply wipe out those
R&D requirements (I could not find any reference to R&D requirements in
the new contract), relieving VeriSign of a big obligation, than to hold
them to improvements that  would benefit the community.

I won't even bother to comment on "new registry services" -- that's a
future battle if/when VeriSign tries to reinstate SiteFinder.

A big thumbs down to ICANN's "negotiators". Shame on ICANN. Shame on
VeriSign. I hope ICANN insiders get their just rewards, when "ICANN
Experience" is a blemish on their CVs, being recognized as an
association with failure.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
http://www.kirikos.com/