June 2009 - RegistryService

Comments on this forum
by Patrick Jones June 29, 2009

June 29, 2009

This forum is monitored for comments on registry service proposals as part of ICANN's 15-calendar day preliminary determination period. Comments submitted will be considered by staff as part of the evaluation. In order to be relevant to staff review, comments should focus on the technical or competition aspects of registry services proposals, as described in http://www.icann.org/en/registries/rsep/rsep.html. As noted previously, http://forum.icann.org/lists/registryservice/msg00021.html, off-topic email and/or cross-postings appearing in other comment forums or lists will be deleted. Patrick -- Patrick L. Jones Registry Liaison Manager & Support to ICANN Nominating Committee Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 330 Marina del Rey, CA 90292 Tel: +1 310 301 3861 patrick.jones(a)icann.org patrickjones.tel

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Verisign's Latest Proposals - Caution Please
by Michele Neylon :: Blacknight June 29, 2009

June 29, 2009

Verisign has submitted two proposals which potentially impact on registrars' business practices Registry-Registrar Two-Factor Authentication Service - while some aspects of this proposal are not abhorrent Verisign's proposal interrupts the relationship between registrars, registries and registrants. If registrars wish to offer a higher level of security to their clients this should be their choice, however I have reservations with the registry operator forcing changes that will affect registrars' business processes as well as their technical implementations A two factor authentication for communication between registrar staff and the registry makes sense at one level, but Verisign's proposal would appear to go too far. Registry Lock Service - this proposal has merit, but the pricing of the service needs to be clarified. As the SSAC and others have noted during the most recent ICANN public meeting (and elsewhere) there are serious issues that affect registrants with regard to domain abuse etc., However it is imperative that ICANN do NOT allow a private company, such as Verisign, to mandate the pricing of such an offering. The pricing and availability of such a service should be subject to the same market forces as domain name registration and thus registrants should be able to access the service regardless of their economic status. The pricing models that Verisign mention in their proposal would apply to registrars who would, naturally, add their own margin. The end result of this could easily be that "protecting" a domain name could cost several hundred dollars per year on top of the registration fees. While this cost may not be an issue for multinational corporates even they would feel the impact when they need to apply such a service to their domain portfolios. The underlying presumption on Versign's part is that a registrant will only need to protect one or two domain names with this kind of service, which is obviously not the case when you examine any of the larger brand owners. For the above reasons I would, therefore, urge ICANN to carefully consider the impact on the user community as a whole before allowing Verisign to introduce a service that would obviously benefit their shareholders more than the end users Regards Michele -- Mr Michele Neylon Blacknight Solutions Hosting & Colocation, Brand Protection http://www.blacknight.com/ http://blog.blacknight.com/ http://mneylon.tel/ Intl. +353 (0) 59 9183072 Locall: 1850 929 929 Direct Dial: +353 (0)59 9183090 Fax. +353 (0) 1 4811 763 ------------------------------- Blacknight Internet Solutions Ltd, Unit 12A,Barrowside Business Park,Sleaty Road,Graiguecullen,Carlow,Ireland Company No.: 370845

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VeriSign to offer 2-factor security and better registry lock
by George Kirikos June 29, 2009

June 29, 2009

Hi folks, VeriSign intends to offer 2-factor security and a better registry lock, see requests 200904 and 200905: http://www.icann.org/en/registries/rsep/ http://www.icann.org/registries/rsep/verisign-auth-request-25jun09.pdf http://www.icann.org/registries/rsep/verisign-reglock-request-25jun09.pdf I've long been in favour of 2-factor security, so this might be very positive. However, it concerns me that VeriSign might be abusing its monopoly to overcharge for the services relative to what the price would be with competition, in agreement with what Danny mentioned yesterday: http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/ga-200709/msg03045.html Indeed, for those who've cared about "tiered pricing" you'll note they even use the phrase in the section on pricing for the registry lock service (i.e. page 4, "VeriSign intends to charge registrars based on the market value of the Registry Lock Service. VeriSign expects to offer a tiered pricing model"). Furthermore, given the lawsuit out there attempting to break VeriSign's abusive monopoly, which would hopefully eventually lead to regular tender process for dot-com (and other gTLDs) it is important to ensure that these new services don't help VeriSign solidify vendor lock-in, and that they can be transitioned to a new registry operator should a competitor end up winning a future tender process. Also in general it's a good idea to raise security for *everyone* and not just those willing and able to pay a premium. One will note PayPal only charges a one-time fee of $5 for their security key (for their 2-factor security) or $0 for SMS, and then the ongoing costs are $0. https://www.paypal.com/securitykey That security key that PayPal uses comes from VeriSign: http://www.infoworld.com/d/security-central/paypal-ebay-offer-security-key-… VeriSign should not be able to abuse its monopoly by overcharging for long-needed security updates for registrants. Sincerely, George Kirikos http://www.leap.com/

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