Petition to ICANN concerning Verisign

[dynamicnet]

Greetings:

http://www.petitiononline.com/icanndns/petition.html

Please consider signing.

Thank you.

[Adam]

Just to top off a bit more information in the hope of more signatures will be produced here is the info on the petition as appeared in the declaration...

To: ICANN
We internet users, who either own domain names or have an interest in the domain name system, wish to object to the Verisign Sitefinder system. We believe that the system:

1. breaks technical standards, by rewriting the expected error codes to instead point to Verisign's pay-per-click web directory, and threatens the security and stability of the Internet;

2. breaks technical standards affecting email services, and other internet systems;

3. is anti-competitive, providing Verisign with 20 million eyeballs per day for "free", while not paying for the domains they are resolving. All other market participants pay at least $6 per domain per year (wholesale);

4. violates trademark rights of domain holders, by typosquatting on their .com and .net domains; and

5. violates the authoritative nature of DNS, turning it instead into a "best guess" system filled with uncertainty, thereby destroying the coherence of the DNS for Verisign's own short-term profit.

We hereby demand that ICANN immediately:

a) insist that Verisign cease giving incorrect answers to any query in .com and .net, and should instead follow the IETF standards;

b) if Verisign refuses, should redelegate the .com and .net zones to registries that are more willing to follow the DNS standards;

c) for greater certainty for all gTLD registries, pass a resolution stating that "gTLD Registry operateors WILL return NXDOMAIN for ALL DNS queries for which there is not a REGISTERED domain name"; and

d) that Verisign be reprimanded for their monopolistic abuse of the DNS system, and return all audited gross revenues from their Sitefinder system to stakeholders, via a payment to the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) of ICANN in the name of the Non-Commercial constituency

[Supporting documentation can be found at the sites below]

http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/
http://www.opensrs.org/archives/discuss-list/0309/date.html
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/16/0034210
http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/registrars/
http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/ga/
http://log.does-not-exist.org/
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/lynn-message-to-iab-06jan03.htm
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/iab-message-to-lynn-25jan03.htm
http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/ga/msg00336.html


Sincerely,

The Undersigned


This in my mind is something which needs to be attended to and i request all sign this petition.

[Adam]

I am only signature #179. This is disappointing.

[Spencer]

Huh? This must be the wrong petition, because I signed one like this a few days back and there were like 10k signatures...

[S3G]

It's now at http://www.whois.sc/verisign-dns/

Sign away! :)

[Spencer]

Originally posted by S3G:

It's now at http://www.whois.sc/verisign-dns/

Sign away! :) I was afraid VeriSign got it taken down!

[markblair]

The first link keeps giving a "Page cannot be displayed" error message. The second states that it is 'Done' but the page is blank. Maybe Verisign is behind this not working? Hmm...

[Spencer]

Originally posted by markblair:

The first link keeps giving a "Page cannot be displayed" error message. The second states that it is 'Done' but the page is blank. Maybe Verisign is behind this not working? Hmm... Signature count keeps updating on the second one for me.

[James]

number 11788 on the second link.
thats a good amount but need more.

[Adam]

11,788 ... no way is that a good amount. Ok granted, its good in terms of response by users of the internet but its a very BAD amount in terms of how many hundreds of thousands/millions of people this will affect someway or another.

They will all ignore this petition then realise the problem at a later stage when it will most probably be too late to sign against it!

[Adam]

Im #12047 on the petition.

[markblair]

Also added to this thread... http://www.hosthideout.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3513&highlight=verisign

Well, maybe this tidbit of information will help. Apparently, we're not the only ones that don't like what VeriSign is doing. Read below...

http://news.com.com/2100-1024_3-5079059.html

[Adam]

VeriSign sued over redirect Web service
Last modified: September 18, 2003, 8:30 PM PDT

An Internet search company on Thursday filed a $100 million antitrust lawsuit against VeriSign, accusing the Web address provider of hijacking misspelled and unassigned Web addresses with a service it launched this week.

VeriSign's new SiteFinder service takes searches for .com and .net Web addresses that are not spelled correctly or have not yet been registered and redirects them to a VeriSign Web page that includes options and pay-for-placement topic links.

Since it was launched on Monday, the SiteFinder service has drawn widespread criticism from Internet users who complain that VeriSign has overstepped its authority. However, VeriSign says it is merely offering a convenient service.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Orlando, Fla., alleges antitrust violations, unfair competition and violations of the Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and asks the court to order VeriSign to put a halt to the service, said Robert Hart, a spokesman for Popular Enterprises, the Orlando-based parent company of search provider Netster.com.

According to the lawsuit, Mountain View, Calif.-based VeriSign has been using its position as the keeper of the master list of all Web addresses ending in .com and .net, also called domain names, to unfair advantage.

Not only is VeriSign making money off the redirected searches, but it is improperly interfering with competing services, including Netster's SmartBrowse and similar services run by Internet service providers like AOL Time Warner's America Online and Microsoft, Popular Enterprises said.

Typically, Internet users are shown a generic "404--cannot be found" page when a Web address does not exist. SmartBrowse and other services display Web sites and search options that are closely related to the original search request.

VeriSign spokesman Brian O'Shaughnessy said he could not comment on the lawsuit because the company had not seen it and does not as a matter of policy comment on pending litigation.

Story Copyright © 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

[linux-tech]

It was bound to happen, verisign getting sued over this one. I mean, it's all well and good that Verisign wants to promote business, but this is the wrong way to go about getting it.

I thought ICANN ordered Verisign to stop this a couple weeks back?

[frattay22]

Originally posted by dynamicnet:

Greetings:

http://www.petitiononline.com/icanndns/petition.html

Please consider signing.

Thank you.

Why sing something when they are going to sell your name? Plus I have lost all respect to ICANN and WIPO they can Eat it for all I care.

Thanks,
Frank J. Rattay