ICANN shrugs off dotcom lawsuits

John Jeffrey assured us that the ICANN Board was listening to all the public comment made at the conference this week in Vancouver and would make changes and/or decisions on the basis of those exchanges.

However, as has been the case with every public consultation of this nature, Jeffrey acknowledged that there is no bidding impact of public consultation on the Board, and the Board is not even obliged to go through all the comments. We are asked to rely on the fact that the Board will act in the best interests of the internet.

The biggest problem with that argument this time though is that ICANN is intimately connected with the deal. It stands to benefit enormously. Not only would it gain greater authority over the Internet, not only would it have the extremely damaging lawsuits that VeriSign has lodged against it lifted, but it would also benefit financially. The dotcom contract foresees ICANN receiving increasing amounts of a per-domain "tax" over time.

As a result, ICANN's objectivity is fatally undermined. But it is both worse and more complex than that.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends

Under the existing contract, VeriSign has a right of presumptive renewal over dotcom domains. That means that unless it is found to have breached the contract, it gets to keep control.

VeriSign can only be found to have breached the contract if the current legal wrangling with ICANN is brought to a close and the court decides in ICANN's favour. That will take yet more years, cost more millions, and will create yet more disruption at the top of the internet. No one benefits from this, ICANN argues.

If that process is not gone through, the resulting contract extension has to be agreed to by ICANN, VeriSign and the US Department of Commerce. And it is very unlikely that VeriSign will agree to anything put forward by its competitors through the ICANN system.

As a result, ICANN is left in a legal bind. The result of which is the proposed dotcom agreement which, while very far from perfect, is the pragmatic deal that has been struck. VeriSign will make a fortune for the next five years and in return we get an end to the fighting.

There are two very important points to note though: