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The Internet Government The Courts News

ICANN/Verisign Sued For Monopoly Abuse 209

Posted by Zonk from the now-we-see-some-fireworks dept.
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.
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ICANN/Verisign Sued For Monopoly Abuse More

ICANN/Verisign Sued For Monopoly Abuse

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  • 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.

    • Re:Solution... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lysergic.acid ( 845423 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @03:54PM (#14141021) Homepage

      They probably wouldn't. I know saying anything in a sarcastic matter-of-factly tone makes you sound witty, but there's not much merit or logical basis for assuming that the U.N. would make the same kind of abuses. The U.N. is not a for-profit organization, and U.N. commitee members cannot profit from such unethical practices. They don't have shareholders whom they are obligated to turn a profit for. As such, it makes them much more suitable for running a global communication infrastructure that's just as important to our global society as other shared public infrastructures such as roads and sewage systems. So if anything, these abuses by ICANN should make us reconsider the legitimacy of their monopolistic control.

      • Re:Solution... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jbellows_20 ( 913680 )
        What about the oil-for-food scandal that has recently rocked the UN? Sounds to me that even though the rules don't allow such profits to be made, they are made nonetheless.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • You are absolutely right. After all, it is a governmental institution on a global scale.
          Maybe Republicans are on to something...

          Then again...

          I'm not saying that Democrats or Liberals have clean hands or anything, but to trust Republicans? You are right, where ARE the mod points for "scary".

          Cheers. :)

      • Re:Solution... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by glitchvern ( 468940 )

        The U.N. is not a for-profit organization, and U.N. commitee members cannot profit from such unethical practices. They don't have shareholders whom they are obligated to turn a profit for. As such, it makes them much more suitable for running a global communication infrastructure that's just as important to our global society as other shared public infrastructures such as roads and sewage systems. So if anything, these abuses by ICANN should make us reconsider the legitimacy of their monopolistic control.

        IC

      • The food-for-oil scandal is proof enough that the UN is *hardly* free from these kinds of issues.

        And frankly, as valuble as the UN is as an open discussion among nations, it really isn't qualified to run anything. It tries give every nation, regardless of population/economy/technology/human rights/etc, an equal say - and lacks a means of enforcing its resolutions (be it economic sanctions or military). I fail to see how politicizing the internet, handing over its control from a tech-based non-profit or
      • They might be not-for-profit, but individuals usuall are for-profit. That's where we get things like personal interest and corruption.

    • Re:Solution... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Roger_Explosion ( 709412 )
      It's really interesting how differently the UN is viewed in the United States compared to the rest of the world. In the rest of the world, it is viewed as a force for good, which although has a few problems like any large beaurocratic organisation, has it's heart in the right place and does much more good than harm. In the United States however it seems to be viewed as some sort of corrupt, evil, old boys club where the members sit around taking bribes and criticise America's unilateral approach to world af

  • 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

      • These lawyers were all making millions per year (the partners were splitting 8-figure profits every year). They were also working at least 80 hours per week.

        Sounds less like being a lawyer ruins your life and more like being a lawyer who wants millions of dollars per year ruins your life.

  • Shrug (Score:1, Interesting)

    by hammackj ( 872358 )
    Domain registrations should cost $100 a year, just to help stop idiots from buying every domain name for $8.95 and reselling them for more than they are worth.

    • Re:Shrug (Score:2, Insightful)

      by InsideTheAsylum ( 836659 )
      That's not very good though, I don't have a job right now, but I own two domain names (I won't plug them here though..). Thankfully, they only cost me something like $9 for a year and with a friend hosting my sites for me, I can enjoy the benefit of being a penniless bum with a domain name.

    • Re:Shrug (Score:4, Insightful)

      by LordLucless ( 582312 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @04:14PM (#14141241)
      No, that would only stop poor idiots. You've still got rich idiots to contend with.

    • Re:Shrug (Score:4, Insightful)

      by metamatic ( 202216 ) on Tuesday November 29, 2005 @04:53PM (#14141742) Homepage Journal
      A much better solution would be to make them non-transferable.
      • This makes a lot of sense for a lot of reasons, but it just takes us back to the "what is the purpose of DNS?" argument that will never be won.

        DNS was expected to provide a label for a hierarchy of administrative domains on the Internet. From a purely technical perspective, it makes no sense to transfer the name of your administrative domain to some other schmoe. In fact, given that URIs and other persistent identifiers like message IDs and X.500 suffixes incorporate DNS domains, you generally do not want

    • Re:Shrug (Score:2, Insightful)

      by doodlebumm ( 915920 )
      Low cost is good, but if the domain is NOT used for a legitimate use (uses other than to hold onto it for the purpose of reselling for a profit) within a short window, rights to the domain can be contested and the name re-sold. If then re-purchased by the original owner, the price is 10 times the previous yearly price (and then 10 times that price for the re-purchaser if it still isn't put to proper use, etc.). No more cyber-squatting would be done, because it would be too expensive. A cybersquatter would h

  • 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...

  • 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.
    • At 7% it will double almost every 10 years.
      • The doubling time is a mere ln(2)/.07 or ~9.9021 years assuming continuous compounding.
        • Isn't that what I said?
          • You said slightly over 10 years while my number is under. I'm guessing that you used annual compounding or you heard the number from a financial presentation (finance has some love for non-continuous compounding, despite it being a tedious chore to compute, especially when non-equal periods are used, like the calander month). I hear that 7% is almost a doubling every 10 years figure so often that I wanted to clarify things.

            If Verisign implements a 7% hike once a year, then the number you gave will be correc
            • Ahh I notice the difference now. No I simply solved the function 1.07^x = 2. x came out to be 10.245. So I guess that's simple compunded yearly interest (which sounded like what they were going to do).
    • Let's do the math: We'll start with $1. 1 yr: $1.07 2 yrs:$1.14 3 yrs:$1.22 After three years that's 22%. Do this with a million dollars and you've got a BIG problem.
    • They have the right to increase prices 7% each year. When you think about it in reference to everything else in the world, that's very restrictive on them, because most things have no such restrictions. For example, Dell has the right to increase their laptop prices by whatever they want. Microsoft has the right to increase Windows prices by whatever they want. Farmer Brown has the right to increase the prices for his turnips by whatever he wants.

      The reason most prices don't go up dozens of percentage point
  • If WADND thinks they will win this suit, I have a hotel on the Boardwalk to sell them.
  • After how that entire situation was handled, I'm disgusted by ICANN and verisign ( who's on my shit list for the wildcard crap they pulled a year+ back ).

    Of course, it's not like the money is going to go anywhere else than a lawyer's pocket, but in this case I don't mind that much.
  • We can only wish they both lose...
  • If anything the prices of new domains should go down. After all isn't the technology getting cheaper. Maybe they are adding a nightmare of a bureaucracy they need to pay, or maybe they want higher salaries. Either way if my broadband prices and computer equipment are falling so should theirs.

  • 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.

    • Re:Sore losers? (Score:3, Informative)

      by wayne ( 1579 )
      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?]?

    • Re:Cheaper eh? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ZachPruckowski ( 918562 )
      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.
    • Try Simple-SSL [simple-ssl.com]. It's exactly the same certificate offered by RapidSSL [rapidssl.com], but significantly cheaper.

      Works in most browsers (test it if you're not sure!), and it's single-root, not chained-root (chained-root is a bit more cumbersome to set up).

      (No, I have no affiliation, I'm not even a customer - I have a client who bought a RapidSSL cert, so I know it works fine; I didn't find Simple-SSL until after I'd already bought mine from somebody else.)

  • 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?

  • They can do that? Take all the .com names I mean.
  • I really hope it leads somewhere, cause they also have ssl certificat (almost) monopole. I write almost, cause eventhough they're other compagnies. The price difference isn't that much. Our client demand the certificat so we have no other choices than get one...

    Will that make the price drop? I think not. Will they pass the bill(fees) to the customers? hum I think yep

    I hate it when an action produce an equal negative opposite reaction

    But at the end we, the little e-commerce business provider will have
    • 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.

  • Just like my property taxes and unlike my last few raises :( What did everyone expect though. We have a war to pay for damnit!!!

    gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]

  • 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.

  • 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
  • What are the qualifications for being a "Domain Name Developer"?
    I want to put that on my resume too.
    • As a long time agitator for the loosening of the ICANN/Verisign stronghold over domain registrations and other internet related items, I have to admit to being surprised to find that they're facing an even bigger bunch of l4m3r& in court. Who would have thought it? I *gasp* think I might want to see ICANN win this one.

      2 cents,

      Queen B
  • The row concerns the decision by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) to allow the private firm Verisign to maintain control of .com forever.

    Not to utterly nitpick here, but you'd think a highly reputable institution like the BBC would have journalists that comprehend that acronyms are capitalized. When one makes errors, such as improper spelling in a blog or in casual writing it doesn't bother me so much--but for some reason it really irks me to see BBC use "Icann" in a news art

  • Burn 'em. (Score:2, Informative)

    by ktulu182 ( 917570 )
    As an employee of one small .com Registrar I would rather support WADND in this case. ICANN and Verisign are a bunch of greedy lazy bastards. ICANN earns 25 cents per year per every .com/.net domain name (so called ICANN tax - basically for nothing, they only perform Registrar accreditations), and Verisign takes 6 bucks for maintaining .com/.net Registry. But there other ICANN taxes, which are not so widely visible to general public. ICANN charges all .com/.net Registrars $20k a year just for the right to r

  • 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.
    • Maybe they did it on purpose - would you rather they had posted your IP for every Joe Blow to start surfing to and pinging?

      Or maybe I'm just not cynical enough yet...

      Jw
      • The issue is that 12.34.567.89 is not an example of an IP.

        That's like saying (123)4567-890 or (123)456-7890 are an examples of U.S. phone numbers. They aren't. And swearing that they are makes these guys look inept.

        They just as easily could have chosen 123.45.67.89 as an example, or better yet 192.0.34.163.

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