Comments re. VeriSign?s .net bid

[scottcarson@xxxxxxxxxx]

Evaluators of the VeriSign .net bid must consider a
number of factors that have been overlooked in other
comments.

1. SRS Service Unavailability:  In its bid, VeriSign
claims that it has unparalleled service availability
for the registry as compared to competitors.  An actual
analysis of its reports submitted to ICANN shows
several areas where their record is lackluster.  For
example:
     a. In just 2001, when VeriSign was the monopoly
registry, it took .net down for over 36 hours.
     b. In 2001 and 2002, .net suffered over 250
minutes of outages (unplanned downtime).  In 2004, .net
suffered an outage of 1 hour and 23 minutes in April,
and exceeded its SLA in May.
     c. VeriSign can take as much as 5 seconds to
respond to a request before it considers itself in
violation of an SLA.  In comparison, other registries
have limits ranging from 400 ms to 1.5 seconds, and
consistently meet it.

2. IDN: Many seem to have forgotten that VeriSign
launched IDNs in 2001, using a non-standard system
(RACE) for encoding these names.  VeriSign sold almost
2 million of these ?IDN? names -- that never worked. 
It is ironic to see this company complain in its bid
that these non-working names were not translated
properly by another bidder.

3. SiteFinder: VeriSign?s service that broke the
Internet and compromised its stability has not been
permanently withdrawn by VeriSign.  Its CEO continues
to lobby against ?technical zealots?, even though the
company?s own technologists acknowledged publicly that
many services broke when they introduced SiteFinder.

VeriSign appears willing to take risks with core
internet infrastructure.

4. Apparently Spurious Claims: VeriSign has taken upon
itself to attack many of its competitors in its bid,
using a combination of seemingly spurious claims and
unsubstantiated remarks.  For example:

     a. VeriSign claims that DENIC?s systems
?frequently go offline? and offers as evidence a
snapshot from RIPE.  Reading the chart, it is clear
that it is a snapshot of a point in time, and does not
provide evidence of a long-term problem.
     b. VeriSign claims that Afilias had an ?outage? in
September, and refers to a posting by a blog site. 
Careful analysis of the postings and RIPE monitor logs
for that time period, plus the number of domains
registered during the time period indicates there was
no outage.

In an effort to win .NET, VeriSign appears to be
willing to resort to FUD and make outright
mis-statements.

Evaluators should carefully review VeriSign?s claims
against its competitors, and look beyond pretty
graphics.