Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
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ICANN and VeriSign Announce End to Long-Standing Dispute
24 October 2005
Press Release
ICANN today announced that it has reached an proposed agreement to end all pending litigation over its long-standing dispute with VeriSign. The proposed agreement documents are being posted for public comment and are subject to final approval of the ICANN Board. This settlement will clear the way for a new and productive public/private partnership in coordinating technical management of the Internet's domain name system.
Commenting on the proposed agreement, Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN said: "This proposed agreement settles many of the long-standing points of tension between ICANN and VeriSign. The settlement opens the way for a constructive and productive relationship between ICANN and VeriSign that will benefit the global Internet community, and further illustrates the benefits of a multi-stakeholder approach."
The proposed agreements between ICANN and VeriSign provide for the settlement of all existing disputes between ICANN and VeriSign, coordination of planning where appropriate, and commitment to binding international arbitration to prevent any future disagreements from resulting in costly and disruptive litigation.
Importantly, the creation of a clearly defined process for the introduction of new registry services is incorporated in a new .COM Registry Agreement. The agreement also extends the term of VeriSign's management of the world's oldest public registry .COM, and sets out better ways for ICANN and VeriSign to work together to promote stability and innovation of the Top Level Domain.
About ICANN
ICANN is an internationally organised, non-profit corporation that has responsibility for Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name system management, and root server system management functions. As a private-public partnership, ICANN is dedicated to preserving the operational stability of the Internet; to promoting competition; to achieving broad representation of global Internet communities; and to developing policy appropriate to its mission through bottom-up, consensus-based processes.
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ICANN/VeriSign Agreement
Initial Questions and Answers
1. What does this mean for the lawsuits between ICANN and Verisign?
Pending public comment and full approval by the ICANN board, the proposed agreement settles many long standing points of tension between VeriSign and ICANN which have adversely affected the broader Internet community. It eliminates all pending litigation between the two parties, and - importantly for the community - more ICANN staff and resources can be devoted to ICANN's core functions, rather than to litigation with VeriSign over the terms of the .com registry agreement. In the future, in the event of a disagreement relating to the .com registry agreement, both sides will be able to make use of binding arbitration under the International Chamber of Commerce.
2. What does this mean for future registry services VeriSign might introduce?
The proposed agreement outlines a clearly defined process for the introduction of new registry services in .COM. VeriSign agrees that all new registry services will be reviewed by ICANN prior to introduction through a transparent, defined and timely process.
Under the proposal, VeriSign and ICANN are agreeing to clear definitions and processes for review that further advance the stability and security of the DNS: