Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

ICANN/Verisign Sued For Monopoly Abuse

Posted by Zonk on Tue Nov 29, 2005 03:27 PM
from the now-we-see-some-fireworks dept.
The Internet Government The Courts News
Andy_R writes "The BBC is reporting that the World Association of Domain Name Developers (WADND) have filed suit against ICANN and Verisign for alleged violations of antitrust, conspiracy, monopolization and price fixing laws. The suit alleges that the two are entering an unlawful agreement that gives VeriSign a permanent monopoly over the all .com and .net domain name registrations, and the right to raise prices at 7% per annum forever. The text of the lawsuit is available as a .pdf from WADND." ZDNet has the story as well.
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] Nineteen Registrars Decry ICANN Arrangement 150 comments
hpcanswers writes "ICANN, the governing body for Internet domain names, recently gave VeriSign exclusive control of the top-level .com domain until 2012. Now, nineteen registrars, including GoDaddy and Network Solutions, have petitioned ICANN to reconsider on the basis that VeriSign will most likely increase registration fees. A few of the registrars have also asked the US Department of Commerce to veto the deal." From the article: "The new deal permits VeriSign to increase the price of domain name registrations by 7 per cent in four of the next six years. In the two remaining years, VeriSign will only be able to raise prices if it can show the rises are necessary for security reasons. It also gives VeriSign a presumptive right to renewal of the .com registry, on the proviso that it complies with certain aspects of the agreement."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

ICANN/Verisign Sued For Monopoly Abuse 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Is this why... (Score:5, Funny)

    by garrett714 (841216) on Tuesday November 29 2005, @03:29PM (#14140745)
    ...they can only afford to provide single letter domains now?
  • Obviously we should give control of the internet over to the UN. They would never abuse or monopolize it.

  • And at the end of the day.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 8127972 (73495) on Tuesday November 29 2005, @03:30PM (#14140755)
    .... The only people who will win are they lawyers. Makes me wish I went into law rather than computer science.

    • Re:And at the end of the day.... (Score:5, Funny)

      by thefirelane (586885) on Tuesday November 29 2005, @03:40PM (#14140875)
      The only people who will win are they lawyers. Makes me wish I went into law rather than computer science

      But then you'd be part of the problem, instead of part of the other problem
    • Makes me wish I went into law rather than computer science.

      I strongly considered this right after receiving my computer science degree. I actually have a friend who is going down this road. Nevertheless, I interned in the IT department of a smallish (but hugely successful) law firm one summer in college and befriended many of the lawyers in the office, including one of the founders.

      Every single one of them recommended staying out of law if you desire to have any sort of life. It is very difficult to

  • hm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PunkOfLinux (870955) <mewshi@mewshi.com> on Tuesday November 29 2005, @03:30PM (#14140760) Homepage
    The way I see it, there should only be one entity in charge of assigning of names for the internet. With millions of people on the internet, having multiple organizations in charge of domains and such would make the internet so much less efficient.

    • Re:hm (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Rude Turnip (49495)
      I think the whole DNS system should be shaken up perhaps to the point that it rattles apart. The internet is the next generation of printing press, turning everyone into a publisher. YET...the only way to get your name out there is to revert back to a huge, political beaurocracy to register your domain name. There must be a better way...perhaps an open, democratized "AOL-type" system based on keywords?

      • an actual interesting idea!
      • The internet is the next generation of printing press, turning everyone into a publisher. YET...the only way to get your name out there is to revert back to a huge, political beaurocracy to register your domain name. There must be a better way...

        Who says you need a domain name to publish stuff on the Web? Just about any ISP or hosting company can set you up with space under their domain name. Or, run your own server and publish the IP address instead of using DNS...

        Verislime does many evil things, but I'm

  • court? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Janek Kozicki (722688) on Tuesday November 29 2005, @03:34PM (#14140811) Journal
    the court in which country will handle this? I don't see this, since it is international problem here. Is there any interantional court? Geneva? US? UN? Japan? we are talking about whole earth...
    • Is there any interantional court? Geneva? US? UN? Japan? we are talking about whole earth...


      Closest thing would be the International Court of Justice [icj-cij.org] run by the UN.

    • Re:court? (Score:4, Funny)

      by j1mmy (43634) on Tuesday November 29 2005, @03:41PM (#14140877) Journal
      you might be surprised to find that both articles linked from the story answer your questions and concerns. you might want to try reading them.
    • Yes, there're many international courts. It's somewhat surprising that you don't even know the Internation Court of Justice [icj-cij.org], located in The Hague. As its role is to arbitrate disputes between states, it doesn't apply here.

      For monopoly and other related antitrust aspects, the two most active regulators, and biggest markets, are the USA and the EU. Without knowing the law details, I'd guess that the respective laws enable complaints against anybody active in their juridisction, no matter where the defendant i
      • So ignoring our constitution and surrendering our sovereignty to an international bureaucracy would be smart? Dude, you need to get off of the anti-american bandwagon and think for yourself for a change.

  • show me the money! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by intmainvoid (109559) on Tuesday November 29 2005, @03:37PM (#14140833)
    7% forever is just crazy, short term it's not a big problem, but over a long enough period it's like a licence to print money (which explains why that's what they wanted). It would be a different story if they linked it to inflation or some other index.
  • If WADND thinks they will win this suit, I have a hotel on the Boardwalk to sell them.
  • We can only wish they both lose...

  • already too expensive (Score:5, Insightful)

    by demonbug (309515) on Tuesday November 29 2005, @03:39PM (#14140862) Journal
    How can it possibly cost more every year to register a domain name? Everything involved except labour continually becomes cheaper - bandwidth, processing power, storage, everything! The process is basically automated anyway, so how can a steady increase in the cost of registering a domain be justified?
    The price is already too high, in my opinion - companies like verisign (and other domain name registers) are making money by charging for something that is essentially free to create. For-profit companies should be kept out of domain registration - isn't that part of the point of ICANN in the first place?

    • Re:already too expensive (Score:4, Funny)

      by ajdlinux (913987) on Tuesday November 29 2005, @03:45PM (#14140934) Homepage Journal
      It's to make people think about what they are buying. If domain names were free, then everyone would register everything and not think about it.

    • I agree and disagree at the same time. Anybody who produces a product has the right to charge whatever they want for it. If the market will pay high prices (and in this case, people do), why should they lower it? It's obviously worth the price (otherwise people wouldn't pay).

      However, the DNS system is not really a product, per se. Verisign just happen to be in control of the root nameservers that everyone just happens to use. Fair enough, they have the right to charge anyone whatever they want for add

  • Sore losers? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BeerCat (685972) on Tuesday November 29 2005, @03:41PM (#14140882) Homepage
    So, having lost the battle over who "owns" the Internet (or at least the DNS system), it seems as though the next step is to challenge the "owner" as a monopoly.

    Hmm. Being a monopoly is not a crime. It only becomes so when abuse of monopoly power can be demonstrated. This does not look like it (yet), as there is a big difference between what you are contractually allowed to do, and what you actually end up doing.

    • Re:Sore losers? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by marcosdumay (620877) <.marcosdumay. .at. .gmail.com.> on Tuesday November 29 2005, @04:05PM (#14141143) Homepage Journal

      Let's see, ICANN abuses the power it have as a not for profit body to create a monopoly for a for profit business.

      Yes, this does not look like abuse of economical power, it is more like normal corruption and abuse of *(political) power, that give jail time to the people, instead of regulations.

    • So, having lost the battle over who "owns" the Internet (or at least the DNS system), it seems as though the next step is to challenge the "owner" as a monopoly.

      I think you are confused. The two different(?)groups suing ICANN (CFIT [cfit.info] and WADND [wadnd.com]) don't appear to have anything to do with the EU and their complaints about ICANN and the US government control of ICANN. ICANN has made many enemies over the years.

      That said, the Verisign agreement may well be related to the complaints by the EU. Part of this a

  • Cheaper eh? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by saskboy (600063) on Tuesday November 29 2005, @03:41PM (#14140885) Homepage Journal
    I'd like to see domain names to be much cheaper, so that neophytes can get a domain name for $1US/year.

    What pays for the DNS system anyway, and why aren't domain names sold directly to the public instead of through registr[ars][ants?]?
    • I'd like to see domain names to be much cheaper, so that neophytes can get a domain name for $1US/year.

      Cheap domains are bad, because for every one we get from an amateur, interested neophyte (like me), we'll get 3 spammers picking up cheap sites. A medium cost, and one with a reasonable rate hike, not an excessive one, would allow people with interest to get a site (while encouraging them not to drop something they paid decent money for), and stopping mass pickups of dozens of names.

  • I was going to say that Verisign has quashed any competition with respect to the provision of SSL certificates, but it appears that there are alternatives available (some of them much more competitively priced, in fact- https://www.registerfly.com/ssl/ [registerfly.com] for example. However, I did notice that they use something called a ChoicePoint Unique Identifier. Due to the security issues with ChoicePoint, I find it rather ironic that they are issuing identifiers (purpose unknown) for something related to security.

  • Which side, again? (Score:5, Funny)

    by IWannaBeAnAC (653701) on Tuesday November 29 2005, @03:43PM (#14140907)
    Whoa, I'm confused. Are we for ICANN, or against ICANN, in this round?

    I can't see any UN involement here, so I guess we can safely be against ICANN?

  • Sounds like a bunch of fuckweasels to me. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Tackhead (54550) on Tuesday November 29 2005, @03:47PM (#14140947)
    Hmm.

    http://wadnd.com/ [wadnd.com]

    Appears to be part of...

    Targetedtraffic.com [targetedtraffic.com], who appear to be working with folks at the reputable-sounding domain names americanflags.com, revenue.net, golfcourses.com, ireit.com, erealestate.com, and it looks like they all hail from Delray Beach, Floriduh.

    Congratulations, guys! I don't know whether you're spammers or not, but it takes talent to sound like a filthier bunch of domain-hijacking cockgobblers than the entire marketing department of Verisign. I mean, seriously -- I read those domains and was surprised when I didn't see any of you on the ROKSO list of the top 100 spammers. I actually looked. About the only way you could have looked like a bigger bunch of dirtballs would have been to have been based in Boca Raton, FL, or Slidell, LA.

    I hate to say this guys, but even though you're not on the ROKSO list - after seeing who you're working with, I kinda hope Verisign/ICANN wins.

    • Congratulations, guys! I don't know whether you're spammers or not, but it takes talent to sound like a filthier bunch of domain-hijacking cockgobblers than the entire marketing department of Verisign.

      From wadnd.com, the partial list of participants:

      • JEFF REYNOLDS (AmericanFlags.com) - American Flag vendor
      • RON SHERIDAN (Revenue.net) - Internet Marketer
      • BRIAN NULL (GolfCourses.com) - Golf course information
      • RON JACKSON (DNJoural.com) - Domain Name Journal
      • MARC OSTROFSKY (iREIT.com) - Internet Marketer
      • MAR
    • CircleID is reporting that ICANN has been sued over their deal with Verisign [circleid.com] by a group called Coalition for ICANN Transparency Inc. These don't, on the surface, appear to be the same group as mentioned in the BBC and ZNET stories.

      CFIT appears to be much less of "fuckweasels" to me.

    • I'd mod you up for that background research (really interesting) but you're already at 5 ;-) Good job though.

      Whatever happened to Godaddy's (et al) lawsuits against VerminSlime?
  • When the article quotes the filing as saying: "thereby precludes competitors from ever entering the .com and .net domain name registration market" That seems a bit misleading, since the icann/verisign agreement is about maintaining the central "whois" database not excluding others from offering registration services.

    You will still be able to register domain names through GoDaddy [godadddy.com], Dotster [dotster.com] or someone else.

    The biggest concern here for the rest of us, who want to keep it inexpensive to register domain names, i

  • off to a good start (Score:4, Funny)

    by PMuse (320639) on Tuesday November 29 2005, @07:36PM (#14143145)
    From the Complaint: An example of an IP number might be: 12.34.567.89.
    • It would be relatively easy to modify DNS so that an SSL certificate would be accessible for every domain. Each SOA record would also contain a signature for the next layer's public key, allowing anyone who had the root domain's public key to initiate a secure connection to any and all hosts with a domain name.

      While Verisign is in charge of a large chunk of the DNS infrastructure, however, this will never happen, because it would take away one of their major profit centers. Sad really.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2010 Geeknet, Inc.