[ga] Commerce Dept: 'Confident' VeriSign Pact Can Be Reached

[Bruce James <bmj@keyname.net>]

May 14, 2001

Dow Jones Newswires Commerce Dept: 'Confident' VeriSign Pact Can Be Reached Dow Jones Newswires By Peter Loftus Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES NEW YORK -- The Department of Commerce said Monday it's confident it will reach an agreement with VeriSign Inc. (VRSN) that would extend VeriSign's monopoly on operating the central database of most Internet addresses. Commerce officials met with VeriSign executives Monday evening and provided feedback on VeriSign's April agreement with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, the non-profit organization charged by the federal government with overseeing the allocation of Web addresses. "We have communicated our general thinking (to VeriSign), are pleased with the progress, and are confident an agreement can be reached in the near-term," the department's general counsel, Ted Kassinger, said in a prepared statement after the meeting. Before the meeting, a Commerce department spokesman said the department had "concerns" about the proposed VeriSign-Icann agreement, but declined to elaborate. VeriSign spokesman Brian O'Shaughnessy said none of the issues under discussion affect the "core terms" of the proposed VeriSign-Icann agreement. "VeriSign and Icann are truly in lock-step, and are extremely confident we'll get a favorable ruling," he said. Neither the Commerce Department nor VeriSign would disclose the issues that VeriSign must address in order to secure Commerce's approval. O'Shaughnessy, the VeriSign spokesman, said any modifications to the proposed agreement with Icann would be "minor." Under the proposed VeriSign-Icann agreement, VeriSign would exclusively operate the central database, or registry, of Internet addresses ending in .com through 2007. It would give up control of .org addresses in 2002 and open the .net domain to competition in 2006. A key provision of the proposal is that VeriSign wouldn't have to divest itself of either its registry unit or retail address unit, Network Solutions. That modifies a 1999 agreement with Icann, which required VeriSign to make such a divestiture in order to keep control of all three domain names through 2007. Under the 1999 agreement, VeriSign had until May 10 to sell or spin off either its registry or Network Solutions. Last month, the Commerce department extended the deadline to May 31 to give it time to consider the proposal. VeriSign has indicated it would shed the Network Solutions unit if the Commerce Department rejected the proposal. VeriSign collects $6 annually for each address in its registry, no matter which company sells the name at the retail level. -By Peter Loftus, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5267; peter.loftus@dowjones.com Officials from the Commerce Department and VeriSign continued to negotiate Monday evening, a person familiar with the matter said. One outstanding issue is that Commerce wants to specify the precise date by which VeriSign would divest itself of the database for Web addresses ending in .org, this person said. So far, VeriSign has publicly said it would give up its lock on that domain sometime in 2002. Commerce also wants to specify the date in 2006 when the database for .net addresses would be re-opened to competition, the person said. -By Peter Loftus, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5267; peter.loftus@dowjones.com

 

 

/Bruce