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Verisign blasts ICANN for rushed generic top-level domain name rollout

Major gap "between aspirational timelines" with new gTLD program, and reality.

Cyrus Farivar - Mar 29, 2013 4:51 pm UTC

Remember those new generic top-level domain (gTLD) names that ICANN has been talking about for years now? That system, once in place, would allow not only sites like yourname.com, but yourname.yourname.

Companies have been bidding huge amounts of cash for the right to own these names, with American publishers lambasting Amazon’s efforts to control the .book domain name.

Verisign now says it’s nowhere near ready to launch the "New gTLDs"—and as one of the key masters to two of the world’s root servers, that’s a problem. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, Verisign placed the blame for the delay squarely at the feet of ICANN, the global organization entrusted with domain name management.

“Without a well constructed and well-reasoned process model, and at the scale of changes foreseen with the addition of the unprecedented rate of the new gTLDs being added, the entire DNS hierarchy faces the potential for issues at or near the root of the DNS tree, and the fallout from such a change could affect all delegations,” Verisign wrote in its 8-K filing.

Verisign goes on to argue that ICANN has been moving far too quickly.

“It actually appears as though there is little to no time allotted for operators to adequately prepare, and the lack of stable fundamental specifications and test plans within days of publicly stated testing times illustrates a clear disconnect between aspirational timelines with the New gTLD program and operational realities with which various stakeholders are constrained,” the company added.

ICANN did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.

Verisign outlined a number of things that ICANN is supposed to have in place before the new system can go live, including “Pre-Delegation Testing,” a “Trademark Clearing House (TMCH),” and a “Emergency Back End Registry Operator (EBERO),” among others. “While ICANN issued a [request for information] in July 2012 and developed a short list in December 2012, there are currently no signed/tested EBERO providers, to our knowledge,” Verisign added.

UPDATE 1:35pm CT: ICANN President and CEO Fadi Chehadé sent this statement to Ars: "Security of the DNS has always been paramount for ICANN . Every issue raised by Verisign in this report has been discussed within the ICANN community during the development of the new gTLD program over the past eight years. The programme is operationally on track and I anticipate no delays."

Promoted Comments

RPGChaiSmack-Fu Master, in training
jump to post

minnmass wrote:
sep332 wrote:
Devin wrote:
allwrong wrote:
gTLD are like VIP boxes in stadiums. They don't add nothing to the game and prevent us from recognizing a url by its extension. Hope it gets delayed until forever.

To be fair, what does .com tell you about a particular domain? Sure you can make some assumptions about a .org or a .ru but none of these designations were predicated on being able to predict content just by the TLD. I don't even think it will lead to much more of that nasty little trick spammers use by embedding a recognizable domain into a unrelated URI, due to gTLDs being so expensive.

It doesn't tell you what's at a URL but it does tell you that it is a URL.

I tend to agree with sep332, but I'd offer a slight modification: it tells you that it is a complete URL.

I was thinking the same thing. Under this system, what would stop someone from creating a http://www.arstechnica.com.1/ pointing to something nefarious?

11 posts | registered Nov 9, 2011
DomainInciteSmack-Fu Master, in training
jump to post

You've got the wrong end of the stick Cyrus mate.

Verisign's *asking* for delay.

http://domainincite.com/12465-chehade-s ... b-on-icann

2 posts | registered Nov 30, 2010
nibbArs Centurion
jump to post

This new gTLD are the worst thing that can happen the Internet. Mom and dad can get their .com for 15$ bucks, with a gTLD you are dividing the internet in two, gTLD owned by huge companies and organizations and the rest.

This is like creating a VIP Internet, it will lose cause harm and lose value on current domains. Everyone could setup a website with little to not budged, now there would be no reason since most people will not be able to compete with their name vs a gTLD which they can´t get.

Registrars are the first ones that are going to notice this, with people registered less and less standard domains. This will also cause more confusion for users, in particular when this companies that own this gTLD start to use them to differentiate them from the rest which cannot own or register this extensions,

The process is also unfair and immoral. Who decides who gets .cloud or .internet? Who decides who gets .world or .planet?

Someone needs to make a decision on this, and I know which factor they are going to weigh in. Money. The one that pays more, gets the extension. So the ICANN is now creating a VIP Internet and another one for the rest of the mortals. A .com was 120$ at most when it was new, then it was 35$ for several years, this is still affordable, and nothing out of another world. But how many of us could actually get a gTLD for several hundreds of thousands?

And the excuse that there isn't enough domain names anymore is ridiculous. There are more extensiones and names I can count, and I find names for almost anything, even with .com you can find names, the problem with .com and other extensions is cybersquatting, not that there are not enough names. 90% of more .com are not developed or have no active websites, probably even more. That is the problem. If a .com would costs 50$, this problem would drop in huge ways since cybersquatting started to get popular when domains dropped to its lowest price point.

The ICANN is just corrupt and doing an awful job at sustaining the Internet. This new domains will cause nothing but problems, and they keep approving more and more names like if that is a good thing.

287 posts | registered Feb 8, 2012

Promoted Comments

RPGChaiSmack-Fu Master, in training
jump to post

minnmass wrote:
sep332 wrote:
Devin wrote:
allwrong wrote:
gTLD are like VIP boxes in stadiums. They don't add nothing to the game and prevent us from recognizing a url by its extension. Hope it gets delayed until forever.

To be fair, what does .com tell you about a particular domain? Sure you can make some assumptions about a .org or a .ru but none of these designations were predicated on being able to predict content just by the TLD. I don't even think it will lead to much more of that nasty little trick spammers use by embedding a recognizable domain into a unrelated URI, due to gTLDs being so expensive.

It doesn't tell you what's at a URL but it does tell you that it is a URL.

I tend to agree with sep332, but I'd offer a slight modification: it tells you that it is a complete URL.

I was thinking the same thing. Under this system, what would stop someone from creating a http://www.arstechnica.com.1/ pointing to something nefarious?

11 posts | registered Nov 9, 2011
DomainInciteSmack-Fu Master, in training
jump to post

You've got the wrong end of the stick Cyrus mate.

Verisign's *asking* for delay.

http://domainincite.com/12465-chehade-s ... b-on-icann

2 posts | registered Nov 30, 2010
nibbArs Centurion
jump to post

This new gTLD are the worst thing that can happen the Internet. Mom and dad can get their .com for 15$ bucks, with a gTLD you are dividing the internet in two, gTLD owned by huge companies and organizations and the rest.

This is like creating a VIP Internet, it will lose cause harm and lose value on current domains. Everyone could setup a website with little to not budged, now there would be no reason since most people will not be able to compete with their name vs a gTLD which they can´t get.

Registrars are the first ones that are going to notice this, with people registered less and less standard domains. This will also cause more confusion for users, in particular when this companies that own this gTLD start to use them to differentiate them from the rest which cannot own or register this extensions,

The process is also unfair and immoral. Who decides who gets .cloud or .internet? Who decides who gets .world or .planet?

Someone needs to make a decision on this, and I know which factor they are going to weigh in. Money. The one that pays more, gets the extension. So the ICANN is now creating a VIP Internet and another one for the rest of the mortals. A .com was 120$ at most when it was new, then it was 35$ for several years, this is still affordable, and nothing out of another world. But how many of us could actually get a gTLD for several hundreds of thousands?

And the excuse that there isn't enough domain names anymore is ridiculous. There are more extensiones and names I can count, and I find names for almost anything, even with .com you can find names, the problem with .com and other extensions is cybersquatting, not that there are not enough names. 90% of more .com are not developed or have no active websites, probably even more. That is the problem. If a .com would costs 50$, this problem would drop in huge ways since cybersquatting started to get popular when domains dropped to its lowest price point.

The ICANN is just corrupt and doing an awful job at sustaining the Internet. This new domains will cause nothing but problems, and they keep approving more and more names like if that is a good thing.

287 posts | registered Feb 8, 2012

Cyrus Farivar Cyrus is a former Senior Tech Policy Reporter at Ars Technica, and is also a radio producer and author. His latest book, Habeas Data, about the legal cases over the last 50 years that have had an outsized impact on surveillance and privacy law in America, is out now from Melville House. He is based in Oakland, California.

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