Settlement Comments

["Jim Prendergast" <jimprendergast@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It is important to people from all across the high tech sector to come together 
and support this agreement.  VeriSign has fought with ICANN since its inception 
- that fight was not good for VeriSign, ICANN or for the Internet community at 
large.  The only individuals who benefited from such a stalemate were lawyers 
looking to draw out this fight for fees and services.  This siphoned away money 
from ICANN and held up new services such as Internationalized Domain Names.  It 
has led to bad behavior by both sides, and it gave some people in the ICANN 
community an excuse to get nothing done. 

In regards to the long overdue decision, consumers have never benefited from 
litigation in the high technology sector.  It serves only to slow down advances 
and drive up costs for consumers.  Any innovation is better than litigation.

Now the two sides have settled in the best possible way, each giving a little 
for the greater good.  VeriSign has conceded its right to offer new services 
without getting ICANN's approval.  In exchange, ICANN has given VeriSign some 
leeway on .com pricing (less than in .net, by the way) and extended .com, which 
VeriSign would have likely gotten anyway.  Simply put, this is a good agreement 
for all parties involved. 

 

Please take a minute to look at the reality of the situation here, and please 
take the time to support this agreement. 



Jim Prendergast
Americans for Technology Leadership
www.techleadership.org