A super highway now unwinds for Verisign, virtual owner for life of the .com extension and legally free to increase its prices.

No doubt that several readings will be made of the proposal but one thing is certain: none of the involved parties has gained credit from the public interest point of view.

To read the English article : http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-28feb06.htm




ICANN Board Approves VeriSign Settlement Agreements




28 February 2006




Marina del Rey, California, 28 February 2006: Today, ICANN's Board of
Directors approved, by a majority vote, a set of agreements settling a
long time dispute between ICANN and VeriSign, the registry operator for
the .COM registry.




These settlement documents include a new registry agreement relating to
the operation of the .COM registry. The new .COM registry agreement will
now proceed to the U.S. Department of Commerce for final approval, and
the entire settlement is dependent upon this approval before it is
finalized. USDOC approval is required due to the unique history of the
.COM generic top-level domain and it is the only gTLD which requires
such approval. If approved, this settlement will clear the way for a new
and productive relationship between ICANN and VeriSign facilitating
ICANN's stewardship and technical coordination of the Internet's domain
name system.




ICANN's Board voted 9 to 5 in favor of the settlement agreements with
one director abstaining. Affirmative votes were cast by the following
Board Members: Vint Cerf (Chairman), Alejandro Pisanty (Vice-Chairman),
Mouhamet Diop, Demi Getschko, Hagen Hultzsch, Veni Markovski, Vanda
Scartezini, Paul Twomey (President and CEO), and Hualin Qian. Directors
who voted against the approval of the settlement documents were:
Raimundo Beca, Susan Crawford, Joichi Ito, Njeri Rionge, and Peter
Dengate Thrush. Director Michael Palage abstained. Statements by Board
members on their votes will be posted on the ICANN website within the
next two days.