2002-04-22 - VeriSign WLS Proposal

Whereas, on 21 March 2002 VeriSign, Inc., the operator of the .com and .net registries, requested amendments to the registry agreements for those top-level domains to allow it to charge registrars an annual subscription fee of US$35.00 (with rebates of US$7.00 or US$11.00 depending on volume) for providing a proposed wait-listing service (WLS);

Whereas, this proposal has been discussed in various forms within the ICANN community since 30 December 2001, prompting both opposition and support from various segments of the community;

Whereas, the Transfers Task Force within the DNSO has undertaken a review of issues raised by deletion practices (including the WLS proposal) in the context of its analysis of transfers, and is scheduled to submit its final report for public comment in May, so that the Names Council can provide a final report to the Board in June;

Whereas, the Board believes that the report of the Transfers Task Force will be of assistance in evaluating the VeriSign WLS proposal;

Whereas, on 17 April 2002 the General Counsel presented an analysis to the Board concluding that it is plausible that legitimate interests of others could be harmed by the proposed amendments, so that more than a "quick-look" analysis is appropriate and the formal consensus-development processes currently established within ICANN should be employed to determine whether the amendment should be approved;

Whereas, the Board concludes that, before acting on VeriSign's request for amendment of the .com and .net registry agreements, it would be helpful to receive community comment on the request, and particularly on policy concerns raised by the request that would harm the legitimate interests of others;

Resolved [02.53] that the Board requests the Names Council to coordinate within the DNSO a comprehensive review of issues concerning the deletion of domain names and possible solutions for those issues and to submit to the Board, no later than 10 June 2002, a status report on that review, with the status report to include any recommendations (with supporting materials) concerning VeriSign's request to modify the .com and .net agreements to allow it to provide a wait-listing service, for a fee, as part of its operation of the .com and .net registries;

Resolved [02.54] that the Secretary is directed to advise the Address and Protocol Councils of VeriSign's request and the Board's intent to consider that request at its Bucharest meeting on 28 June 2002, with an invitation to those councils to submit comments (if any) on the request before that time;

Resolved [02.55] that the Board invites public comments on VeriSign's request and directs that a suitable mechanism be established for allowing comments to be submitted over the Internet to ICANN for at least a thirty-day period; and

Resolved [02.56] that the Board invites comments on VeriSign's request at the Public Comment Forum to be held on 27 June 2002 in Bucharest, Romania.