On behalf of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) and our network
of over 3,000 state and local taxpayer groups nationally, and taxpayers in general,
I want to express my support for the agreement between the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and VeriSign, Inc., and encourage your favorable
judgment.As you know, at one time Network Solutions, now owned by VeriSign, was
the only government-sanctioned organization to register entities for the .com, .org,
and .net top-level domains (TLDs). In 1999, Network Solutions, ICANN and the
Department of Commerce negotiated a new agreement in order to create a competitive
industry for registering domain names. As part of this contract, Network Solutions
agreed to separate its registry services and registrar business and allow other organizations
to enter the market. In the two years since the approval of the new agreement,
VeriSign manages only 40 percent of the new registrations on the .com, .org, and
.net TLDs, while ICANN has accredited over 150 new registrars, 90 of which are operational.
Because
of the success of the 1999 agreement in opening this industry up to competition,
ATR believes it is no longer beneficial for VeriSign to separate its registry and
registrar services. In fact, requiring VeriSign to do so would be a striking
double standard within the industry. ICANN currently permits new organizations
to act as both registry and registrar, and demanding this division by VeriSign only
would place an unfair burden upon this company.
In order to ensure a level playing
field, and alleviate any concerns that VeriSign could maintain a monopoly in this
market, the new 2001 agreement struck by VeriSign and ICANN requires VeriSign to
relinquish control over .net and .org, and only maintain registry and registrar services
over the .com TLD. In addition, VeriSign has pledged an investment of $200
million over a ten-year period to increase the efficiency of the .com, .net and .org
registries and enable access by all ICANN-accredited registrars. In turn, ICANN
will assign a non-commercial entity to register the .org TLD and re-establish its
primary purpose as a TLD for other non-commercial entities. ATR urges ICANN
in its discretion to grandfather-in organizations that currently own .org registries
in an effort to ensure continuity and allow those organizations that have branded
themselves with this TLD to keep the web presence for which they originally registered.
ATR
believes this new agreement between ICANN and VeriSign will advance competition in
this growing industry while ensuring a level playing field. I encourage ICANN
to approve this agreement.
Onward,
Grover G. Norquist