[wildcard-comments] A kudo and several warnings...

["Jason R. Pascucci" <jrp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm pleased ICANN stepped up to the plate to protect the stability of the
internet, enforce their registrar contracts, and live up to their existing
contractual responsibilities. It was not too little (thus far), but I find
it a too late: it should have been done well over a week ago. Arguably, it
should have been done preemptively. It should be done preemptively next time
(and there _will_ be a next time).

I'm _not_ glad that Mr. Lewis appeared to flat out lie in his response:
"During the more than two weeks that Site Finder has been operational, there
is no data to indicate that the core operation of the Domain Name System or
stability of the Internet has been adversely affected.". There's _plenty_ of
data to indicate that stability of the Internet was adversely affected, as
contrary to his apparent belief, the Internet is NOT merely WWW and SMTP.
And if you define that one of the 'core operations of the DNS' is returning
correct results (not found) when queried (which _anybody_ who didn't have a
vested interest in this would grant), then this statement was a totally
self-serving prevarication, not worthy of someone in a position of trust
within the internet community.

Beyond that, I'm concerned about the following future possibilities:
        1) I don't like the fact that Verisign appears to continue to
self-servingly not acknowledge the negative affect of DNS wildcarding. I
foresee that Verisign will use the Press Conference that is scheduled (in
the middle of the day, no less - before the facts have been presented)
during the day of the technical conference to attempt to railroad the
proceedings, by continuing to dismiss evidence as 'anecdotal', and do
something like assert their 'rights' (of which they have none, but it makes
a good sound-bite), or make a public appeal for governmental regulation to
'help level the playing field' for companies to.well.make a buck any way
they can (although they won't say it like this), or some other power-play
that I can't envision yet.
        2) I find it a problem that ICANN does not acknowledge the relative
sleaziness (call it unfairness) of the _intent_ of this service, regardless
of the technical problems. If ICANN is wishy-washy given the excesses of
this effort, then they will prove _useless_ in assuring the continued
egalitarian nature of the net. This is not a happy situation to witness.
        With this change, they compromise individual privacy (by being able
to cull individual, valid, email addresses on from mistyped TO: lines, and
attach a originating ip address to a mistyped, non-existent, or
in-registration-process web-site), they compromised individual choice by
forcing all IE based fail-over search patterns to no longer work. 
        It's arguable that they have compromised national security, in that
anybody inside of government, with a connection to the internet, who
mistypes an address could have their IP and attempt recorded, and anybody
who sends an invalid email could have that data hijacked with little or no
effort. (Would it be hard for them to 'reject' mail from certain IP
addresses and 'accept then bounce' mail from others?)
        It's absolutely ridiculous, when you start thinking about it. I've
come up with scenarios of 'enabled' behavior that doing this allows.
        3) I'm further concerned about Verisign's WLS, for some of the same
reasons. First, it's _really_ sleazy. It's a complete gamble - free money to
Verisign, no conceivable _valid_ use of the feature, and has the negative
affect of harming legitimate registry users who, possibly through no fault
of their own, may be temporarily out of contact (or their contact info was
entered wrong in the first place - or was updated "incorrectly" or on
purpose). And where will it stop? They claim there is 'only one' reservation
now, but is it not just a matter of time before they charge for being second
in line? Third? Nth? Or worse, will they charge a subscription fee for
signing up for WLS after the present waiting user's Pre-Order subscription
terminates? Or do something like - you have 2 days to register this domain,
then the next person in line gets it. It quickly becomes a license to print
money for Verisign, with NO value to someone other than a cybersquatter.
Getting one's domain back will prove an even longer and more costly process
- a process that this mechanism will exacerbate unreasonably.
        Secondly, if you look at the
https://www.nextregistrationrights.com/backorder.sn, they are right this
moment violating the equal access clause of the registrar agreement. They
are claiming to have 'better access to the DNS' as a registrar than other
registrars. "The only backorder service administered by the .com/.net
registry, offering only one subscription per domain name."
        Thirdly, they way they phrase the description, is that it appears
_likely_ that one will gain the website at the end of the reservation period
- likely to a non-knowledgeable user.
        Fourthly - do you think they will turn down a registration for a
domain that does _not_ expire in the 'next registration' subscription
period? I don't. And what happens when the original owner extends their
registration? Refund? Partial refund? I think not. If there were laws
against internet gambling...this would qualify.
        Fifthly - this price is completely arbitrary. They could very easily
create a bulk-subscription deal, designed exactly for cyber-squatters.
Maximize their profits (for almost zero investment), maximize their negative
impact on the playing field. The latter they have proven isn't an issue.
        I feel you _must_ pre-empt this further attempt for Verisign to play
fast-and-loose with the status quo, to nobody's benefit but their own, and
to the detriment of all end-registrants.

        Given the above, their increasing recklessness, the lack of
accountability and their decreasing trustworthiness, I encourage ICANN to
terminate all agreements with Verisign immediately (including their
registrar status), and either set up a peer-to-peer update mechanism with a
consortium of DNS providers, to handle the .org and .com TLDs, so people can
_choose_ which services to accept or ignore, or assign it to a service
provider who is _strictly_ contracted to only make changes at the request of
ICANN. Finally, ICANN should become more (not less, as it appears things
have been going) responsible to end-users, rather than to registrars, major
ISPs, and other high-influence, low-scruple groups.

JRP