Correction of remarks made by VeriSign in their proposal

[Sabine Dolderer/Denic <dolderer@xxxxxxxx>]

At DENIC, we stand with conviction behind the complete, carefully-crafted, 
strong and unique value proposition we have put forward
with our proposal. We fully believe our proposal stands tall on its own merits, 
and it was with this confidence that we therefore
did not find it necessary to use the proposal as an opportunity to attack our 
rival bidders.

However, a couple of our competitors did use their proposals to call into 
question some of our capabilities and experience ? and in
many cases, the claims they made were simply inaccurate and incorrect. In order 
to set the record straight, we felt it was necessary
to correct these misperceptions and inaccuracies and submit them on the public 
record.

Below are our reactions to erroneous and unfounded claims made by VeriSign in 
their proposal. In our responses, we aim to set the
record straight with regards to DENIC?s independent status as a registered 
cooperative, and its complete independence from the
German government; its reliable, stable and proven technical systems; and its 
comprehensive, 24X7, global registrar support. We
address each of VeriSign?s remarks in the order in which they appeared in their 
proposal.

Regards,

Sabine Dolderer CEO, DENIC


Governmental Agency

* DENIC is a quasi government agency whose stated focus is in the German 
Internet community. (VeriSign 2-2-b)

DENIC, being a registered co-operative, is by definition not associated with 
the German government or any of its agencies. Founded
by members of the Internet industry and community, DENIC focuses on the 
requirements of all, who are leveraging the ccTLD .de to
foster the growth and success of the Internet. This aim is codified in DENIC?s 
Statutes, the principal document for all the
activities of DENIC as a co-operative. Section 1 (2) defines: "In accordance 
with the internationally acknowledged standards for the
operation of a country code Top Level Domain, the co-operative also fulfils its 
function for the benefit of all who are interested
in the Internet, and does not pursue the realization of profits. It merely uses 
its revenues to cover its costs and to secure its
own existence."

Among the registrars and domain users served directly and indirectly by DENIC 
are a large number of international companies. Members
of DENIC are, to name just a few, eNom, Melbourne IT, and VeriSign itself. For 
a complete list, please refer to
http://www.denic.de/en/denic/mitgliedschaft/mitgliederliste/index.jsp. They all 
benefit from their reliance on a registry strongly
rooted in the national and international Internet community.

The business model of a co-operative is very common all over the world, often 
used for promoting self-regulation and self-governance
of the involved industry. The open, transparent, and democratic structure of a 
co-operative thus is closely related to the basic
principles of the global Internet.

The International Co-operative Alliance has enshrined the fundamental 
principles of the co-operatives into its ?Statement of
Co-operative Identity,? developed in 1995. It describes precisely and very 
clearly the spirit of a co-operative to which DENIC is
committed. For your convenience, it is reprinted below:

Statement of Co-operative Identity

The Statement on Co-operative Identity was adopted at the 1995 General Assembly 
of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA),
held in Manchester on the occasion of the Alliance's Centenary. The Statement 
was the product of a lengthy process of consultation
involving thousands of co-operatives around the world.  The International 
Co-Operative Alliance Statement On The Co-Operative
Identity Definition

A co-operative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to 
meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs
and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled 
enterprise.  Values

Co-operatives are based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, 
democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity. In the
tradition of their founders, co-operative members believe in the ethical values 
of honesty, openness, social responsibility, and
caring for others. Principles

The co-operative principles are guidelines by which co-operatives put their 
values into practice.

1st Principle: Voluntary And Open Membership Co-operatives are voluntary 
organizations, open to all persons able to use their
services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership, without 
gender, social, racial, political, or religious
discrimination.

2nd Principle: Democratic Member Control Co-operatives are democratic 
organizations controlled by their members, who actively
participate in setting their policies and making decisions. Men and women 
serving as elected representatives are accountable to the
membership. In primary co-operatives members have equal voting rights (one 
member, one vote) and co-operatives at other levels are
organized in a democratic manner.

3rd Principle Member Economic Participation
Members contribute equitably to, and democratically control, the capital of 
their co-operative. At least part of that capital is
usually the common property of the co-operative. They usually receive limited 
compensation, if any, on capital subscribed as a
condition of membership. Members allocate surpluses for any or all of the 
following purposes: developing the co-operative, possibly
by setting up reserves, part of which at least would be indivisible; benefiting 
members in proportion to their transactions with the
co-operative; and supporting other activities approved by the membership.

4th Principle: Autonomy And Independence Co-operatives are autonomous, 
self-help organizations controlled by their members. If they
enter into agreements with other organizations, including governments, or raise 
capital from external sources, they do so on terms
that ensure democratic control by their members and maintain their co-operative 
autonomy.

5th Principle: Education, Training And Information Co-operatives provide 
education and training for their members, elected
representatives, managers, and employees so they can contribute effectively to 
the development of their co-operatives. They inform
the general public - particularly young people and opinion leaders - about the 
nature and benefits of co-operation.

6th Principle: Co-Operation Among Co-Operatives Co-operatives serve their 
members most effectively and strengthen the co-operative
movement by working together through local, national, regional, and 
international structures.

7th Principle: Concern For Community While focusing on member needs, 
co-operatives work for the sustainable development of their
communities through policies accepted by their members.

Adopted in Manchester (UK) 23 September 1995.


Registrar support

* DENIC has 216 registrars but there are 250+ .net registrars. (VeriSign 2-2-b)

DENIC has planned measures to further increase its staff in the support 
departments and to establish a second support location in
North America. DENIC?s .net plan enables support of up to 500 registrars 
without any additional staffing. The second support
location will be operated by Tucows and will especially focus on registrars in 
North America and Asia. Our dedicated and skillful
teams are well prepared to fully support the .net registrars from April 15 
forward.

There are more than 250 registrars accredited for .net, but not all of them 
actually register .net domains. The latest Registry
Operator Monthly Report (June 2004) listed around 170 registrars for .net. But 
this is just numerical nitpicking since the quality
of support is not dependent on the number of registrars to be served but on the 
resources, the capabilities and the competence of
the registry.


Outage of DENIC?s systems

* DENIC has deployed systems that frequently go offline as illustrated in 
Figure 8-vii-1. (VeriSign 2-8)
* "Many ccTLD registry systems have not been designed to support the number of 
registrars that provision .net. Even the largest (by
number of domains) ccTLD operator, DENIC, has deployed systems that frequently 
go offline as illustrated in Figure 8-vii-1."
(VeriSign 2-8)

Currently, DENIC serves more than 200 members who actively participate in the 
registry processes and use the systems associated with
the successful growth of the ccTLD .de, which now has more than 8 million 
registered domains. As a direct result, DENIC is very
familiar with serving a large number of registrars and handling an even larger 
number of domain registrations. Further, DENIC is at
the forefront of gaining experiences and unparalleled knowledge as well as deep 
insight into successfully managing the scalability
of such systems and processes. This clearly sets DENIC apart from other 
applicants in the .net process.

An independent monitoring tool introduced by RIPE, the DNSMon 
http://dnsmon.ripe.net, gives a perfect picture of the stability and
reliability of DENIC's systems. The referenced figure 8-vii-1 is a snapshot of 
that monitoring tool showing the effect of zone
transfers to single DENIC name server systems which work in a redundant setup 
providing maximum availability and resiliency. It
remains unclear how this should be related to the number of registrars a 
registry is dealing with.

When other .net applicants refer to this picture, they should keep in mind 
several points:

The picture reflects the status as of November 2004. At this time, DENIC?s name 
servers were sequentially provided with zone files
updates. During the reload, using the current standard BIND software, the 
specific name server is not able to respond to requests.
This setup is very common in the international Internet community. It has no 
effect on the DENIC name server system as a whole,
since all other name servers respond. The red phases are more an aesthetic 
problem than a technical one. Thus, the system was not
offline. The DENIC system never went down.

It should also be noted that DENIC has changed and enhanced its name server 
system in January 2005. At each location, three name
servers are now used as a cluster. Throughout the reload time, at least one of 
them will always respond to requests.

DENIC?s name server system has never experienced any outage during its eleven 
years of operation. It is extremely reliable and many
efforts are undertaken to keep it state-of-the-art. For instance, DENIC was 
among the first registries to have name servers in the
IPv6 regime and to use anycast to increase the stability and security of the 
name server system.

--
Sabine  Dolderer
DENIC eG
Wiesenhüttenplatz 26
D-60329 Frankfurt

eMail: Sabine.Dolderer@xxxxxxxx
Fon: +49 69 27235 0
Fax: +49 69 27235 235