Why are we in this situation in the first place?

[Mary Smith <timesall718@xxxxxxxxx>]

I did some digging and found a great article published back in 2011.

It goes into detail how VeriSign was able to land this enormous
contract.  VeriSign sued ICANN and after many months of litigation,
ICANN settled the lawsuit to avoid further legal costs and this is
when the no-bid, presumptive right of renewal clause was negotiated on
behalf of VeriSign:

http://www.domainarts.com/2011/11/22/upcoming-verisign-price-increase-reminder-of-icanns-failure/




The ICANN board approved this settlement in a 9-5 vote, but the ICANN
board failed to act in the public’s best interest.  They did this to
avoid even more ligation and legal expenses.  This is why we have
VeriSign running the .com monopoly.



ICANN has said that it needed to accept the agreement to settle the
lawsuit with VeriSign. "VeriSign has advised ICANN that this proposal
represents its last, best offer to settle the pending litigation,"
ICANN said in a statement in January 2006.



Sounds like ICANN did not even put up a flight and caved into
VeriSign’s demands.



Sad for all domain holders throughout the world.  Even sadder ICANN
wants to go international and not answer to anyone, yet it messed the
.com contract up so bad in the first place and never attempted to fix
the monopoly it created.

Mary