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VeriSign-ICANN dispute tests the net
By Anick Jesdanun
THE dispute over VeriSign's move to direct unsuccessful website lookups to its
"Site Finder" has turned into a test of whether financial or public
interest drives decisions on how internet infrastructure.
A US federal lawsuit that grew partly from that dispute has a hearing Tuesday
in Los Angeles. The lawsuit, filed by VeriSign, is the latest threat to the
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which was selected by the
US Commerce Department in 1998 to oversee key aspects of cyberspace.
"If VeriSign prevails, ICANN really is going to be legally prohibited from
doing all sorts of stuff that it sees as a key part of its mandate," said
Jonathan Weinberg, a Wayne State University law professor who has examined ICANN's
contracts with VeriSign.
In addition to the complaints by VeriSign, some developing countries are trying to shift ICANN's authority to an international body, perhaps under the United Nations.
Both challenges grow out of frustrations over ICANN's scope and procedures.
ICANN chief executive Paul Twomey said such strife is to be expected in a five-year-old organization pieced together not through laws or treaties but through nearly two decades of contracts, amendments, memorandums and informal arrangements.
"There's no other organisation like it partly because the internet is so unique," Mr Twomey said. "ICANN has been a startup going to a more mature stage."
The disputes may seem arcane, but ICANN decisions could have broad impact on the net's stability.
Until ICANN stepped in, for instance, websites ending in ".ly" temporarily disappeared this spring because of private disputes in Libya over the country's central directory of domain names.
ICANN coordinates the internet's addressing system, a set of databases that tell computers how to route email, chat messages and web traffic.
VeriSign has the contract to run the high-level databases listing the 250 or so domain name suffixes — such as ".com", ".fr" and ".au" — as well as the specific ".com" and ".net" databases that point to specific sites like "Microsoft.com."
Those databases typically get more than 11 billion inquiries a day worldwide, and shutting them off would be akin to removing all the world's road signs and burning all maps.
Last year, VeriSign introduced Site Finder, which redirects web users who type in an incorrect URL to a VeriSign-run search website. VeriSign, of course, gets money for directing traffic to some of those sites.
Because Site Finder made some spam filters and rival search services stop working properly, ICANN threatened legal action. Critics said VeriSign was trying to make millions from its management of what is essentially a public resource.
Hours later, VeriSign agreed to suspend the service. But it eventually sued ICANN over Site Finder and what the company considers unnecessary delays and conditions placed on other planned offerings, including domain names in foreign languages.
The company complains ICANN decisions have been inconsistent. It also says services like Site Finder aren't covered by its ICANN contract, while ICANN considers them fundamental to VeriSign's role on the Net.
Tuesday's hearing involves ICANN's motions to throw out most of the case.
Esther Dyson, former chairwoman of ICANN, said a ruling against the organisation could establish that "special interests prevails over the general interest."
But Tom Galvin, VeriSign's vice president of government relations, said a ruling for ICANN could discourage innovation.
Even if ICANN prevails, it still faces the international challenge. A US task force is being formed this summer to consider an alternative governing arrangement.
Developing countries take issue with the California-based ICANN's roots and ongoing ties with the US government, even as the organisation opened a new Brussels office in January and has three-fourth of its board members from outside the United States.
Operators of scores of country-specific domain names continue to resist signing contracts with ICANN. And some critics say ICANN takes too long to rule on disputes over management of their databases, many of which were arbitrarily assigned in the 1980s when those countries barely had an Internet.
ICANN officials say the organization is trying to make its procedures even more open and clear. In response to the Site Finder controversy, it is also developing ways for companies like VeriSign to get such services approved more easily.
Hans Klein, chairman of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, said
ICANN was designed to run more like a condominium board than a government. At
times, he said, that leads to "amateurism, casualness and lack of due process".
Source - http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r15457413
