In a not-so-shocking move, Verisign agreed to pull its Sitefinder service.
The company, which initially refused to pull its service after ICANN responded to public outcry and asked Verisign to suspend the service on the 19th of September; a full two weeks later, on October 3, ICANN demanded the service be pulled,citing public outcry, official statements from various technical bodies, concerns of abuse of stewardship and public trust, and failure to comply with the contracts signed by ICANN which grant it the ability to run and manage the .com and .net domains. These include violations of the code of conduct, equal access, neutrality of registry service provider, and provision of an unauthorized service.
By spelling out these issues, it has become clear that Verisign is being held to account for its practices; practices which, for years, many have accused it of. It has been obstructive, abusive, and irrespectful in the eyes of many. This latest transgression, its most public, is the first one which Verisign has been so strongly held to task for - and one which has increased the risk to a very real possibility that it may well lose all of its stewardship over .com and .net, a heartening prospect for the majority of us in both the business and consumer worlds.
These strong words from ICANN, and the quick response by Verisign to avoid sanctions, are the strongest sign yet that ICANN is fast becoming the kind of organisation its founding fathers, and its board members, had always dreamed it might become - a responsible, responsive, and respectable steward of one of the Internet's most valuable and important natural resources, DNS.
We can all wish that action came quicker; however, in taking their time, ICANN was able to gather the information and evidence needed to make the strongest possible demand - information and evidence that will at the very least curb the actions of rogue abuse by Verisign and others in the future, and at the very best may finally bring fresh stewards to .com and .net, and finally rebalance the power of Verisign over the future of DNS and the Internet that relies on it.
