Versign Sues Icann and GoDaddy Jumps In To Help

[URLCollection]

This is from a Press Release sent to our company earlier today - Thought you might like to see this - Steve

GoDaddy - 14455 N. Hayden Road, Suite 226 • Scottsdale, AZ 85260 • T: 480.505.8800 ext. 435 • www.godaddy.com - news release


GO DADDY REQUESTS DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, ICANN
REVIEW VERISIGN’S EXCLUSIVE REGISTRY POSITION
Company Pledges $100,000 to ICANN for Defense of VeriSign Lawsuit
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (March 3, 2004) – Go Daddy Software, Inc., has sent letter to both the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) strongly urging both groups to undertake a formal review of VeriSign’s registry position.
The letter was issued Monday to Sen. John McCain and Sen. Fritz Hollings, chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation; Secretary Donald L. Evans of the U.S. Department of Commerce; and ICANN President Paul Twomey. Also in receipt of Go Daddy’s request were Sen. Conrad Burns, chairman of the Senate Communications Subcommittee; Mike Gallagher, NTIA assistant secretary-designate for Communications and Information; Rep. Joe Barton, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee; Rep. John Dingell, ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee; Rep. Fred Upton, chairman of the House Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee; and Rep. Ed Markey, ranking member of the House Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee.

Citing VeriSign’s complaint filed against ICANN last week -- as well as other recent behavior deemed disturbing to the overall state of the industry -- Go Daddy has requested VeriSign’s role as the .com and .net top-level domain name registry be firmly re-examined. “VeriSign has shown that it is quite willing to place its own profitability before the well-being of the Internet,” said Bob Parsons, president and founder of Go Daddy. “It is for the benefit of the entire Internet community that such behavior be put to a stop.”

On February 26, VeriSign filed a lawsuit against ICANN, alleging the organization exceeded its authority and improperly attempted to regulate the company’s business in violation of ICANN’s charter and its agreements with VeriSign. However, according to Go Daddy’s letter, ICANN acted well within its established boundaries, as outlined in the 1999 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the DOC and ICANN. Specifying ICANN’s management functions, the MOU stipulates that any changes to VeriSign’s registry agreement must first be approved by ICANN, and subsequently by the DOC. VeriSign has violated this policy, the letter states, through the unauthorized introduction of new services.

Through the letter, Go Daddy also contends that VeriSign has failed to meet its fiduciary responsibilities by: Go Daddy Issues Letter to Dept. of Commerce, ICANN Page 2 14455 N. Hayden Road, Suite 226 • Scottsdale, AZ 85260 • T: 480.505.8800 ext. 435 • www.godaddy.com

• Exploiting its position as the monopoly provider of the .com and .net registry as evidenced by VeriSign’s attempt to implement SiteFinder -- a program which directs all traffic resulting from mistyped or non-existent Internet addresses to a VeriSign paid advertising page. The SiteFinder service was taken live by VeriSign without regulatory approval and created disruption, havoc and resentment within the internet community. SiteFinder provided questionable end user benefits but promised to deliver huge profits to VeriSign.

• Using its monopoly position to gain unfair trade and financial advantages, with its proposed WLS system (VeriSign’s program for back ordering domain names). In this case, a monopoly (VeriSign) brazenly determined its own pricing and unbelievably, the price they chose was four times higher than that of regulated domain name prices. “An entire industry has grown up during the past few years around the backordering of domain names. The deal VeriSign wants to offer consumers is worse than the options they already have available from the existing market.” says Parsons. “To boot, if approved, VeriSign’s WLS system will destroy its competition in the backorder market.”
“VeriSign is a huge, multi-billion dollar corporation. ICANN is a small, non-profit
organization,” said Parsons. “ICANN’s principle purpose is to regulate the equitable operation of the domain name system. VeriSign has sued ICANN for doing exactly what it was designed to do.”

To demonstrate its support of ICANN, Go Daddy has pledged $100,000 to ICANN for its defense of the VeriSign lawsuit. “The zealous defense of this lawsuit is critical to the stability of the Internet.” said Parsons. “VeriSign must not be left unchecked.”

A petition is available at www.recallverisign.com for anyone interested in voicing their support of ICANN as well as their concerns about VeriSign. All comments will be forwarded to both the DOC and ICANN. ICANN accredited GoDaddy.com is the No. 1 registrar of net new domains and the No. 3 overall largest domain registrar in the world. Other companies within The Go Daddy
Group, Inc., family include Starfield Technologies, Inc., developer of software systems and services; wild west Domains, Inc., ICANN accredited reseller provider; and Domains By Proxy, a private registration service. GoDaddy.com, together with its sister companies, enables individuals and businesses to acquire, create and safeguard their unique identities and brands on the Internet.
- GoDaddy -

[URLCollection]

We are fully behind Bob on this one. Anyone else that feels the same way should fill out this simple petition - www.recallverisign.com - Steve

[TravelFastpitch]

Petition completed!

[namedropper]

I have to agree with GoDaddy on this one. Verisign refuses to act responsibly, and while that might have been slightly understandable five years back, to threaten ICANN with a lawsuit over doing their freaking jobs just proves they need to be stopped.

[opportunitymagic]

I filled out the petition yesterday

[OnSpec]

We are fully behind Bob on this one. Anyone else that feels the same way should fill out this simple petition - www.recallverisign.com - Steve

Shame that Canucks can't have their voice heard through this vehicle...

[Darren06]

Signed the petition

[URLCollection]

ON SPEC - Shame that Canucks can't have their voice heard through this vehicle...That is strange, being that ICANN is a Global organization? Guess they are starting in our US Congress - Maybe you, DCG, and all the members from Canada on this forum should get one going up there as well?

Got To admire Bob Parsons for stepping out on this to the tune of $100K to help Icann defend the action. Glad to see folks here taking the steps to sign this Petition. Never know if these work but at least it will show some support behind Icann.

[NameTower]

I still signed :p

I put my state as ontario

[WebCat]

Go Daddy Go Daddy Go daddy Go!

[Nameable]

Even if you're non-US, you should still make yourself heard. Congress and DOC are well aware that ICANN, Verisign, and the registry function reach well beyond our borders and serve people in other countries.

[wayne]

thet got my my support

[JMJ]

Are they renewing the petition signups everyday? Yesterday there were over 21,000 signed and now there's 3,103

[mole]

GoDaddy just wants to stop the WLS. Its all bribery in its most blatent and disgusting form imho.

[JMJ]

I assume you believe Verisign munipulating ICANN is better?

[URLCollection]

Mole - (or anyone else that thinks this is just a WLS matter) There is whole lot more to this then just WLS. At risk is the entire backbone of the .com and .net registry. You can go on and on about WLS - Everyone has an opinion about that proposed program (Our Company is not a supporter of WLS) but this suit filed against ICANN is so much deeper that just a waiting list service. For Verisign to file suit against ICANN is just totally out of line. ICANN is a "not for profit organization" that issued the contract to Verisign to manage the registry through Network Solutions (NSI) - back in 1989 - 1991, (The owner of our company was there at that time as one of the first 100th. nic handles ever issued) Then Verisign bought NSI and their relationship with ICANN has gone down hill ever since (They just sold the NSI division but kept the registry contract). This relates to a $4,198,335,650 (Market Value Corporation - VRSN - VERISIGN INC) suing ICANN which may have several million (or less) in their bank account at any one time. Do the math and you will see this is not right. I bet that Verisign would get your attention if then un-plugged the DNS files at the registry for an hour or two, just because they could? Maybe 70-80% of all Internet traffic would stop at once? They have that much power in their hands and they surely have not showed the creditability that would stop them from making just such a statement. Or if they throw up a parking page program (Site Finder) for every domain name any of us own that we have yet to set the DNS on and then reap the PPC revenue on our domains (thus flooding the PPC market with huge volumes of traffic and dropping the bid prices by 50-80% at every ppc program). Or stalling DNS propagation to maybe 5-8 days or more so that they could suck the revenue on every .com - .net domain name in the world that makes a simple DNS change for a few extra days. Now any of those actions would directly effect everyone of us. Are you comfortable with that as a potential in our future? We surely are not!!! Just my two cents worth - Steve