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We disagree with the proposed settlement between ICANN and Verisign

  • To: settlement-comments@xxxxxxxxx
  • Subject: We disagree with the proposed settlement between ICANN and Verisign
  • From: Per Gøtterup <per@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 11:38:11 +0100

Sirs,

On behalf of INFORCE A/S and Webhotel.net I would like to register our profound disagreement with the settlement documents available online here: http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/settlement-agreements.htm

The proposal allows Verisign to increase the price of .com domain names by 7% each year. Currently, prices are capped. There are simply no need for additional income on this as the cost of running these services are actually decreasing due to better automation and distributed management.

The proposal doubles the fees that accredited registrars must pay to ICANN. Again this is something that has no basis in need and thus comes across as pure greed. Also it will make domain usage even more expensive which will make it harder for startups to go online. It is common knowledge that if you invent something and trademark it, you'll need to register all domains even remotely connected with your name to avoid cybersquatting and other abuse that steals traffic and maybe business from you.

The cancellation terms would be difficult to implement. Therefore, Verisign will essentially gain perpetual control of the .com registry. This effectively eliminates all incentive for Verisign to improve quality of service, something which is sorely needed.

Also, Verisign has a history of abusing their control of the registry so perpetual control would be a very bad thing. They used it to make money from unregistered domains through their co-called 'SiteFinder' service. Basically they sent all traffic intended for other sites (but with mistyped URLs) to their own pseudo search engine that was filled with ads and paid links. Even worse, email sent to such mistyped domains was received and accepted at Verisign, to read and do with as they pleased, and the sender was never notified that an outside party had intercepted their email and that it thus wouldn't reeach its intended destination. More on this Verisign abuse here: http://www.betanews.com/article/1063691303 and here: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/16/0034210&mode=thread&tid=126&tid=95&tid=98&tid=99

Background: Webhotel.net is a part of INFORCE A/S, which has been in the hosting business since 1998, and I have been the systems administrator since the beginning. We are located in Denmark in the EU. We represent several hundred customers owning about 1.500 .com and .net domains.

Thank you for your consideration.

--
Per Gøtterup <per@xxxxxxxxxxxx> · Systems Administrator & Support
WebHotel.net · INFORCE A/S · Sydvestvej 100 · DK-2600 Glostrup · Denmark
Phone: +45 70232490 · Fax: +45 70232480 · Web: www.webhotel.net




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