[alac] Posting: VeriSign Settlement documents

[Bret Fausett <bfausett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I went back last night to our Statement from Vancouver about the 
Verisign settlement:

   http://alac.icann.org/announcements/announcement-02dec05.htm

to determine whether our criticisms and suggestions were addressed in 
the modified agreement.

First, we recommended unbundling the settlement of the litigation from 
the renewal of .COM. ICANN did not address this concern.

Second, we criticized the lack of accountability for both ICANN and 
Verisign by virture of (a) lack of oversight mechanisms in the new 
agreements and (b) dependency on Verisign funding for a significant 
percentage of ICANN's revenue. The new agreement goes some way toward 
addressing these by adding performance metrics to the registry agreement 
and reducing the percentage of ICANN's funding from Verisign. I don't 
think the Agreement goes far enough in addressing (a), but the changes 
made in (b) are largely positive.

Third, we criticized Verisign's ability to raise prices 7% a year 
without any checks on its monopoly power to do so. The response was to 
permit Verisign to raise its prices up to 7% a year in four of six years 
for any reason. In the other two years, it can raise prices if it can 
demonstrate that its costs of providing secure and stable services are 
rising. Personally, I think these changes don't really respond to our 
criticism. Verisign's pricing is still not subject to market forces-- 
since it does not face competitive renewal -- and the new price caps 
still allow price increases in spite of the fact that the cost of 
delivering the services is decreasing. My feeling is that ICANN did not 
address this concern.

Fourth, we criticized the way the new agreements allowed Verisign to 
handle TLD server data. The new agreement places restrictions on 
Verisign's ability to collect personally identifying information and 
also requires Verisign to make the data available to all persons on an 
equal basis if it decides to sell the data. In my view, this addresses 
the concerns we raised, though I want to spend more time with the 
language to understand how it still might be "gamed" by lawyers. ;-)

Other thoughts?

              Bret