ICANN revises settlement with VeriSign

Computerworld - After months of legal wrangling, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has reached a settlement with VeriSign Inc., which manages the .com and .net domains, over the creation of new services.
VeriSign had sued ICANN, accusing the regulatory group that oversees the Internet's technical infrastructure of overstepping its contractual authority and dragging its feet on allowing VeriSign to offer new services such as a wait-list service and internationalized domain names. In the lawsuit, VeriSign claimed that ICANN stepped outside its charter by delaying the introduction of new VeriSign services, including its Site Finder service, which redirects requests for nonexistent Web addresses, and its ConsoliDate service, which manages multiple domains. VeriSign claimed that ICANN cost the company money because of its tactics (see "VeriSign sues ICANN in state court".
An initial settlement was reached in October (see "VeriSign settles ICANN lawsuit"), but after taking into consideration numerous public comments about that deal, ICANN and VeriSign revised it. In addition, in November, the Coalition for ICANN Transparency Inc. (CFIT), a lobbying group formed by Momentus.ca Corp. -- one of VeriSign's competitors -- filed a lawsuit over the October deal claiming that VeriSign's unfettered ability to launch new products would destroy smaller rivals. That lawsuit is pending (see "Competitor files suit over ICANN-Verisign settlement").
In a statement on its Web site, ICANN noted that Mountain View, Calif.-based VeriSign has advised ICANN that this proposal represents its "last, best offer to settle the pending litigation."
"This revised settlement agreement represents the best efforts of both VeriSign and ICANN to resolve differences that have been present for several years," VeriSign said in a statement to Computerworld. "We are hopeful that this agreement will be approved so ICANN, VeriSign and the entire Internet community can focus on strengthening the Internet infrastructure and expanding the Internet globally."

ICANN officials could not be reached for comment. But according to an ICANN statement , the revised settlement, which would expire in six years, allows VeriSign to renew its contract for the control of the .com registry in 2012 and sets the maximum price for domain-name registration at $6 through the end of 2006. That money, which goes to ICANN, is passed on from VeriSign to third-party resellers, which can then charge their customers whatever they want. Beginning in 2007, VeriSign can raise that price by 7%, but only for four of the six years the deal is in place. Under the old deal, VeriSign would have been able to raise fees every year.
The revised