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