C|Net News reports on ICANN's public meeting to review the Verisign SiteFinder fiasco. Verisign, arrogant and obtuse as ever, made it clear that they have no intention of leaving Site Finder turned off for good (ICANN ordered them to shut it down about a week ago).
Among the whoppers that caught my eye (emphasis mine):
Stephen Crocker, one of the Internet's original architects and the ICANN committee's chairman, asked VeriSign why the wild card was introduced without giving network operators any warning. "I know for a fact that VeriSign has no problem finding its way to those (technical discussion) forums," Crocker said, referring to the company's ongoing participation in them."I don't want to go beyond the agenda," replied Chuck Gomes, VeriSign's vice president for its registry service. Citing concerns of proprietary information and competitive advantage, he added that he didn't think he could guarantee any advance notice of similar changes in the future.
I think I'm going to be sick. The concept of stewardship (the link is to an excellent commentary on this point by TUCOWS CEO Elliot Noss) is completely foreign to Verisign, and they need to have the registry operation taken from them as soon as is reasonably possible. Would that ICANN could accelerate the rebid for the contract and give other, more community-oriented, companies an opportunity to run things properly.
Ross suggests it in this post, and I'm with him.
Posted by webwiz at October 8, 2003 12:29 PM | TrackBack