[council] Resolution regarding Verisign Registry Site Finder Service
Dear fellow Councilors
As described in an earlier post to Council, I hereby present a resolution to
Council, proposing action by the ICANN board regarding a new registry service
related to typos in domain names:
The resolution which follows describes the situation and proposes ICANN board
action and further steps by the community.
I urge an affirmative vote at our upcoming Council meeting. Because all are
mentioned in the resolution, I will forward copies to the ASO leadership, the
ALAC, the ccNSO launching Committee, the IAB, the Security and Stability
Advisory Committee on this resolution, and the ICANN President and staff.
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"Whereas, the primary and overriding imperative to ICANN's mission is the
stability and reliability of the global Internet. All other responsibilities
must support and respect that overriding responsibility.
Whereas, ICANN also has other responsibilities which must co-exist with this
primary responsibilty, and which include competition, transparency, bottom up
consensus policy development and informed participation by the broad community.
Whereas, the global Internet is dependent upon standards and practices that are
undertaken and agreed to by the private sector through collegial and bottom up,
consensus based processes, embodied in RFCs. Innovation in services at the
"edge" of the Internet, which do not interfere with core technical assumptions
of the Internet's operation are to be encouraged; changes at the core of the
Internet's fundamental assumptions cannot be undertaken lightly, without
notice, and cannot be tolerated if they harm basic resolvability, reliability
and stability of the Internet.
Whereas, infrastructure providers of the global Internet include network
connectivity providers, ISPs of all sizes, web hosting companies, enterprise
operators who operate resolvers and routers, gTLD registries and registrars,
ccTLD registries. These entities share a common and important responsibility of
adherence to a common bond of "do no harm" to the Internet's core reliability
and stability. This responsibilty is a basic imperative which must underpin
even contractual obligations, and is a responsibility of all infrastructure
providers.
Whereas, the introduction of the new registry level service entitled Site
Finder, introduced by Verisign Registry, has raised significant questions from
ISPs, network operators, spam filtering users, and others about its negative
and harmful impact on applications on the Internet, and on the infrastructure
providers, and on the reliabity and stability of the Internet.
Whereas, there was no notice, comment, nor consultation with affected
infrastructure entities by Verisign Registry. These affected entities are
experiencing related complaints, demands on their staff time and resources to
deal with problems, and failures in applications software;
Whereas, failing to address these concerns responsibly and responsively,
creates a concern to governments who may be forced to intervene into such
situations, thus threatening private sector leadership of the Internet,
Whereas, significant questions of harm to the stability and reliability of the
Internet are raised in a variety of technical forums
Therefore, the gNSO Council:
Resolves:
The President and ICANN Board should immediately request Verisign to withdraw
this service for a period of 90 days, during which time the following
activities are advised and will be undertaken, on a fast track process:
1) Request that the Stability and Security Advisory Committee of ICANN, in
conjunction with representation from the gNSO, ccNSO/Launching Committee, ALAC,
ASO,and the IAB create a "committee" to undertake an assessment of the impact
of such service upon the stability and reliability of the Internet. Liaison
participation should be invited from the GAC, and other relevant entities of
ICANN. A report to the ICANN board, and to the participating entities of ICANN
should be prepared for comment and provided by a date certain, within a 90 day
period. The recommendation should be posted for comment on the ICANN site for
the requisite period of time, and a final report presented to the board within
the 90 day period. During this time, the service should be discontinued.
2) The community should cooperate, in a positive and productive manner, in
documenting the impact experienced by the service to date, to inform and
educate the working group in their deliberations. Such information should be
made available via an ICANN comment process, however, a staff developed format
should be recommended, so that the input is organized, coherent, and fact
based.
3) Upon the conclusion of the work of the "committee" and taking into account
the input and advice of the entities identified above in (1), the ICANN
Security and Stability Advisory Committee should provide written public advice
to the Board, regarding the impact of the said service on the stability and
reliability of the Internet.