Dear Kurt: I would appreciate it if you would provide Paul with a copy of my posting. If I understood Paul during our teleconference correctly, he stated that the number of complaints requiring ICANN staff attention and intervention is independent of the size of the registrar. As I previously wrote, I believe that ICANN should quantify this statement and provide data on the numbers and severity of the problems. Let me bring to your attention a serious problem with Network Solutions which required the intervention of Louis Touton. The complete details are found at the following URL: http://www.icann.org/correspondence/touton-letter-to-beckwith-03sep02.htm The following is a truncated copy of the above correspondence, with comments from me in square brackets: Letter from Louis Touton to Bruce Beckwith Regarding Breach of VeriSign Registrar's Accreditation Agreement (Whois Data Accuracy) 3 September 2002 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 September 2002 Via FedEx, Fax, and E-mail Bruce Beckwith Network Solutions, Inc. Registrar 505 Huntmar Park Drive Herndon, VA 20170 Tel: 1-703-742-4817 Re: Notice of Breach of ICANN Registrar Accreditation Agreement Dear Bruce: This letter is a formal notice of seventeen instances of breaches of sections 3.3 and 3.7.8 of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA) that Network Solutions, Inc. Registrar (VeriSign Registrar) signed in May 2001. Under section 5.3.4 of the RAA, VeriSign Registrar has fifteen working days to cure the breaches described in this letter. If the breaches are not cured in that period, then ICANN may give notice of termination of the RAA, after which VeriSign Registrar may initiate arbitration to determine the appropriateness of termination. Under section 3.3 of the RAA, each ICANN-accredited registrar has agreed to provide free public Whois service giving information about the registrations it sponsors in the registry. Among other elements, the information must include: <snip> [I'll skip all but one of the 17.] 9. digeronimo.com: On 21 May 2002, we sent you a note concerning an invalid e-mail address in the Whois data for digeronimo.com: "no.valid.email@WORLDNIC.NET". Over three months have passed since that notification, yet VeriSign has not corrected the false data. Nor has VeriSign advised us what specific steps it has taken to investigate and correct the false data. [This case involved registrations taken by ASCII KK, a reseller for WorldNIC, presumably a reseller for it's parent company, NSI.] [But what Louis' letter does not say is that there were more than one such domain. I am told that there were approximately 60,000 other ASCII registrations with the email address "no.valid.email@worldnic.net".] [If that example of non-compliance did not "scale up" the demand upon ICANN staff, it was only because it was overlooked or ignored.] [I for one do not believe that the number of discrepancies is *not* proportional to the number of registrations. Further, that the number of discrepancies growing out of loose reseller relations are not *several_times_higher* times than the average for each registrar.] <snip> The balance of Louis' letter follows. Cordially, BobC As noted above, section 5.3.4 of the Registrar Accreditation Agreement agreed in May 2001 between VeriSign and ICANN provides that notice of termination of VeriSign Registrar's accreditation may be given if these breaches are not cured within fifteen working days. The pattern of neglect demonstrated by the above circumstances is troubling. In its May 2001 accreditation agreement (as well as in that agreement's predecessor), VeriSign agreed to publish complete Whois data, to undertake reasonable efforts to investigate every notification of Whois data inaccuracy it receives from any person, and to correct any inaccuracies found. The above recitation demonstrates that VeriSign Registrar has repeatedly taken what appears to be a cavalier attitude toward the promises it made. As outlined in ICANN's recent "Registrar Advisory Concerning Whois Data Accuracy" http://www.icann.org/announcements/advisory-10may02.htm, registrars have a vital role in maintaining the accuracy of Whois data. We believe that advisory gives valuable guidance to registrars how they can act responsibly toward the public as well as complying with their contractual obligations. VeriSign Registrar's conduct has fallen far short of both its responsibilities to the public and its agreements. We therefore provide this formal notice of breach of VeriSign Registrar's accreditation agreement with ICANN. ICANN's goal in this matter is to promote accuracy of Whois data, which requires cooperative efforts by VeriSign Registrar in meeting its obligations. We hope that VeriSign Registrar will act promptly to cure the breaches outlined in this letter, and will become more responsive and cooperative in dealing with data inaccuracies as they are discovered. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Best regards, Louis Touton Vice-President and General Counsel ICANN cc: W.G. Champion Mitchell, Executive Vice President and General Manager, VeriSign Mass Markets Division (by e-mail) Bobby Turnage, Esq., VeriSign, Inc. (by FedEx, fax, and e-mail) Phil Sbarbaro, Esq., VeriSign, Inc. (by e-mail) Stuart Lynn, President and CEO, ICANN (by e-mail)