Re: [ga] Verisign & Domain Slamming

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Patrick and all assembly members,

  Nice job here Patrick!  :(  Your only about two days behind the curve.
This was posted on Domain- Policy@yahoo.com two days ago...

  Seems WXW fooled someone again!

Patrick Corliss wrote:

> News Posted July 20, 2001
> -----------------------
> By Jim Wagner
> jwagner@internet.com
> -----------------------
> Fighting what they say is an increasing level of desperation to keep
> its customers close to the fold, registrars and Internet service
> providers (ISPs) responded Friday to VeriSign (NASDAQ:VRSN) charges
> of "domain slamming."
>
> An ever-growing group of ISPs and registrars are lobbying the
> Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to put an
> end to what, in their opinion, looks like the largest registrar in
> the world dictating policy for an entire industry and spreading
> misinformation to keep their monopoly position.
>
> Domain slamming gets its name from the practice by some long-distance
> telephone companies of switching LD service from one carrier to
> another without informing or by misinforming the customer.
>
> Addressed to Stuart Lynn, ICANN president and chief executive
> officer, the letter asks ICANN to take all the facts into
> consideration before making any ruling on domain name transfers.
>
> "We find VeriSign's accusations which claims actions by ISP/IPPs such
> as ourselves constitute "domain slamming" to be offensive
> accusations, which deliberately leave out the full and true facts of
> the cases in order to justify their anti-competitive positions and
> stance, and protect their dominant position which they hold only
> because of their prior monopolistic state. We urge ICANN to reject
> any suggestion by VeriSign to enforce prohibitive policies on domain
> transfers, or whom has delegated that decision to their ISP/IPP."
>
> It's a rebuttal to an open letter penned earlier this week by Roger
> Cochetti, VeriSign senior vice president for policy, where he told
> Lynn that his company would immediately implement its own standards
> for authorizing the release of domain names to competitors.
>
> These "interim" measures, which call for the customer to notarize a
> statement authorizing the release of the domain name, are the result
> of what Cochetti calls domain slamming, the switch of a domain name
> from one registrar to the other without the customer's knowledge.
>
> William Walsh, sponsor of the rebuttal letter sent to ICANN and owner
> of registrar company Userfriendly.com, said the actions by himself
> and other ISPs/registrars were taken to address the many inaccuracies
> and "blatant" falsehoods in Cochetti's original letter.
>
> He paints a nightmare picture of the delays and difficulties
> experienced when he recently tried to switch a customer's domain from
> VeriSign-owned registrar Network Solutions Inc., to Tucows, a
> Canadian-based registrar.
>
> Under VeriSign's new anti-slamming measures, customers have five days
> to complete the authorization process from VeriSign to the gaining
> registrar, or the transfer is blocked. After getting the request from
> the gaining registrar, Walsh said, VeriSign is delaying the process
> by sending the authorization letter to the customer two or three days
> after the request, many times on a Friday afternoon.
>
> That's hardly enough time, he said, to respond and make it within the
> five-day deadline, especially if Saturday and Sunday are included in
> the deadline. And if they don't make the deadline, the customer and
> ISP/registrar are forced to begin the process anew.
>
> That's costly in the case of many owners who are switching their
> domain names to a new registrar at the end of their domain name
> leasing agreement with VeriSign. Many times, their domain expires
> while trying to get it switched over to a new registrar, forcing them
> to pay the $35 initial domain registration fee VeriSign charges to
> reinstate the domain, often to the detriment of the gaining
> registrar.
>
> "VeriSign's practices are causing legitimate transfer requests to be
> blocked or take two to three attempts to be processed," Walsh
> said. "When they are questioned about it, VeriSign's staff blames the
> other registrar for the problems. Registrants are then under the
> mistaken impression that it's the fault of the registrar they were
> trying to transfer to."
>
> The impact of the new policy is affecting registrars everywhere.
> Tucows reports that in the first week of June, 70 percent of its
> customer transfer requests were denied. Other registrars report
> similar numbers, and it looks like it will only get worse unless
> steps are taken to remedy the situation.
>
> VeriSign critics also point to the flawed assumptions Cochetti made
> in his letter to ICANN, which says that most domain customers
> register a domain on their own.
>
> Ross Rader, director of research and innovation at Tucows, says that
> VeriSign officials are only telling part of the story when it comes
> to customers and their domain names.
>
> VeriSign runs under the assumption that domain registration is run
> under a retail model, he said, where people go to the site and
> register the domain name there. But that's only part of it: the
> majority of domain name registrations come through service providers,
> seen by many as the logical source for all Internet-related services.
>
> Doug Wolford, VeriSign mass markets general manager, said the
> relationship they're worried about is between themselves and the
> consumer, not with the compeition.
>
> "The legal relationship in the domain business is always between the
> registrant and the registrar, so if you register a domain name from
> us and someone wants to change that domain to another registrar,
> effectively what they are doing is saying, 'We want to change the
> legal relationship between you and VeriSign," Wolford said. "It's our
> belief, and it's supported by contracts with ICANN and others, that
> we should ask you before that contract is broken. There is, even
> among our community, a fairly limited understanding of the importance
> of that legal relationship."
>
> Rader and others think that mindset is narrow thinking, especially
> when the bulk of domain name registrations are handled by the ISP.
>
> "I do not go to AT&T to buy a T-1," Rader said. "I go to my local ISP
> and they get the bandwidth, they get the IP numbers from ARIN (the
> American Registry for Internet Numbers) for us, they set up my domain
> names. We trust their judgment, and if we didn't we'd go to another
> ISP."
>
> "That's the way people buy infrastructure," Rader continued. "It's
> ridiculous to assume that everybody in the universe is going to buy a
> domain retail because of some perceived customer service benefit or
> pricing benefit. A significant number of people just don't care."
>
> VeriSign points to a series of unpublished surveys conducted last
> year that show what they say is an alarming number of people who are
> victims of domain slamming. According to Cochetti, the surveys show
> that as many as one in three customers were switched to a new
> registrar without their knowledge, many times from duplicitous
> registrars.
>
> "While some de minimis level of customer confusion is to be expected
> (in the transfer)," Cochetti said in his letter, "we were astonished
> at the extent of the difference between what many registrars asserted
> customers had expressly authorized, and what the customers actually
> disclosed to us themselves.
>
> Rader laughs off assertions of VeriSign worries, saying results in
> the VeriSign-sponsored surveys can hardly be considered impartial.
>
> "They've been talking about this magical report for months now, but
> despite repeated requests, they've never publicized it, so we don't
> know what methodology was or the questions they asked," Rader
> said. "They're parading this thing around like its some conclusive
> document that's proving all sorts of things. Essentially it's
> allowing them to speak from an unsupported position. Anything based
> on the survey, as far as I'm concerned, is spurious and
> inflammatory."
>
> Wolford said the survey results are the only thing competitors will
> see, unless ICANN decides to release the results in the future.
> Officials at the governing body were given the detailed reports last
> year.
>
> "I think the appropriate party to share (the surveys with) is ICANN,"
> Wolford said. "ICANN is the standards-setting body in the industry
> and we want them to be the ones to lead the community to a decision
> that's in the interest of consumers. It's not something that any
> company should be doing unilaterally, rather its something ICANN can
> take the lead in. We believe that sharing the information with ICANN
> is the best way of getting that process tightened up.
>
> ICANN officials were unavailable for comment and haven't gotten back
> to VeriSign to talk about Cochetti's letter. Wolford expects that is
> because ICANN will practice due diligence in this matter.
>
> "I think ICANN is viewing this as a matter that requires serious
> consideration of the whole community," Wolford said. "Our survey was
> conducted very rigorously by neutral third parties, based on reports
> from our customers. I think there is definitely a role ICANN can play
> here in setting a standard procedure that everyone can follow and
> have confidence in. What we're concerned about is the trust people
> have in the registrar community, which could be eroded by these
> slamming events."
>
> --
> This message was passed to you via the ga@dnso.org list.
> Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
> ("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
> Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html

Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup - (Over 118k members strong!)
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
Contact Number:  972-447-1800 x1894 or 214-244-4827
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208


--
This message was passed to you via the ga-full@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga-full" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html