[wildcard-comments] Verisign DNS abuse

["L. Gallegos" <jandl@xxxxxxxx>]

ICANN is supposed to safeguard the stability of the internet.  It has done the 
opposite by deliberately duplicating TLDs in the name space, by allowing WLS, 
which the entire community railed against, and now a totally disruptive 
"service" by a 
rougue registry that was given a cash cow by the goverment.

The .com and .net domains are unique in that they were originally controlled by 
an 
agreement with the government.  They were not ever meant to be owned or totally 
controlled by a single corporate entity for personal gain.  While other "new" 
registries 
may have more of an "ownership" right in a registry, this practice of wildcards 
must 
be discouraged as it is disruptive to most currently operating application that 
use 
DNS.

Verisign has taken it upon itself to hijack every user's use of the DNS for web 
surfing 
by claiming any mistakenly input URL for the two largest TLDs as their own.  
They 
are prohibited from this action in their contract, which states they can 
register only 
5k domains.  The damage caused to businesses due to the lack of NXDOMAIN 
errors being transmitted is enormous and horrendous. The geomtric increase in 
spam, alone, is enough to warrant removal of verisign as a trusted keeper of 
this 
government owned resource, but even worse is the potential effect of having 
email 
fall into a black hole if it is mis-addressed and not bounced to the sender for 
corrective action.  I have already experienced this and it is truly frightening.

Many businesses rely heavily on the flow of email for their very existence.  
Sitefinder 
has set up a scenario where email in .com and .net is totally unreliable, where 
email 
is lost rather than returned.  Consider orders and confirmations sent to a 
mistyped 
address.  That, in itself, is enough to disrupt e-commerce on a grand scale.

Verisign is supposed to be a shepherd of trust and sells certificates that 
supposedly 
guarantee trust.  That trust is gone and people should now begin using other 
entities 
that truly can be trusted.  How can anyone have confidence in a company that 
would 
compromise the entire internet for their own monetary gain?

Per David Kaufman (http://forum.icann.org/wildcard-comments/msg00056.html):
"...Instead of allowing Verisign to continue to expend it's considerable
resources devising more and more deceptive ways to sheer the worldwide
internet community, I ask that ICANN send a message to the internet
community that those entrusted to operate it must act ethically: Revoke
Verisign's accreditation as a domain name Registrar immediately..."

I would take it further and demand that the revokation include the registry as 
well as 
the registrar.

I am signer #6620 of the petition at  http://www.whois.sc/verisign-dns/, but 
even this 
is not enough.  

If ICANN is not able to compel a contracted registry from disrupting the 
internet or 
preserving stabiltiy, perhaps it, too, should be removed from the role of 
protecting it 
along with Verisign.  The record speaks for itself.

Sincerely,
L. Gallegos