VeriSign, ICANN Reach Settlement

by Ed Oswald and Nate Mook

October 24, 2005, 7:10 PM

Settling a nearly two year-old dispute over the redirection of unused domains, VeriSign on Monday announced it had reached an agreement with ICANN regarding the group's attempt to stop the company from sending Web surfers to a VeriSign owned search service back in 2003.

The service, called "Site Finder," angered network administrators due to its potential to disrupt spam filters that discard messages from invalid hosts. Privacy issues were also raised, as VeriSign logged all of the error traffic that came its way.

VeriSign discarded the plan after negative feedback poured in, but then went on to sue ICANN over antitrust charges.

The settlement deal provides "business certainty" to VeriSign while acknowledging ICANN's role as the Internet's technical coordinator, the two companies said.

"An agreement could not have been reached without both sides trying to find compromise and new solutions," said Mark McLaughlin, Senior Vice President and General Manager of VeriSign's Naming and Directory Services business unit. "VeriSign's objective was to gain clarity and business certainty for Internet operators."

In addition, the agreement will also extend VeriSign's role in controlling the .com top-level domain through the year 2012. Earlier this year, ICANN selected VeriSign to continue managing the .net domain.

The ICANN board approved sending the settlement to the Internet community for public comment. Following this period, the board will then vote to officially approve the agreement.

Add a Comment

2 Comments

Name E-mail

Betanews reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic. Foul language and personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Where can we comment on this? Quite frankly, I want to see some other company in control of both .com and .net TLDs. They are a horrible company...plain and simple.

Score: 0

|

I agree: they're a dishonest, scamming & thieving entity.

Score: 0

|

Tiny netbooks, simple video set Sony sailing through CES

It's only the first set of Sony announcements, but the product assortment at...

Live from the Panasonic press conference

No longer "Matsushita," and given a big boost with the pending acquisition of...

Sony's big news: the Vaio P 'Lifestyle PC'

The question in advance of Sony's first press conference at CES (there will...

Samsung shows slimmer LED TVs, slimmer Blu-ray console

In an era when HDTVs are being measured in terms of pinky-width, Samsung...

Sharp stays (mostly) on point at lunchtime CES event

A very big room, journalists on the feedbag, and the tricky task of pitching...

Audiovox flashback features Elvis and rabbit-ears

Elvis! The season's first sighting of the King occurred at the Audiovox press...

Live from the Cisco press conference at CES 2009

Known worldwide as an infrastructure company, Cisco now plays a bigger role...

Toshiba focuses on mid-range DTV for everyone

Toshiba's press conference at CES 2009 this morning featured announcements in...

LG unleashes its annual flood of announcements

Holding down its traditional CES-opening spot at 8:00 am, LG on Wednesday ran...

Netgear debuts a BitTorrent-enabled set-top box

The first of NetGear's three big product announcements at CES this morning is...

Live from the LG press conference at CES 2009

Speaking to an overflow crowd in Las Vegas Wednesday morning, executives from...

CES Unveiled event provides a high-energy opener

If CES is a banquet, CES Unveiled -- the opening press event -- is like a...