HostReview.com
Thursday, February 26, 2004; 12:00 AM
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -
February 26, 2004 - VeriSign, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRSN), the leading provider
of critical infrastructure services for the Internet and telecommunications
networks, today announced that it has filed a lawsuit in Federal Court
in the Central District of California against the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
The suit alleges that
ICANN overstepped its contractual authority and improperly attempted to
regulate VeriSign's business in violation of its charter and its agreements
with VeriSign. By straying from its charter and agreement to be a technical
coordination body, VeriSign asserts that ICANN has improperly attempted
to become the de facto regulator of the domain name system and in doing
so stifled the introduction of new services that benefit Internet users
and promote the growth of the Internet.
VeriSign has attempted
to work with ICANN within an agreed upon framework to introduce new services,
including recent discussions regarding the Wait Listing Service, which
enables users to pre-register for a domain name. Over the last several
years, ICANN has failed to follow a clear, consistent and uniform process.
"The framework
embodied in our contractual agreements with ICANN strikes a careful balance
between the need to give ICANN the authority it needs to perform its technical
functions and the need to preserve a registry's flexibility to innovate
and introduce new services. ICANN has upset that balance by making assertions
of control over services and by administering its authority inconsistently
and unfairly," said Tom Galvin, vice president of VeriSign Government
Relations.
"An effective,
credible ICANN is a positive thing for the Internet community. We fully
support a global framework for the coordination of the domain name system.
This effort is about gaining clarity around ICANN's role with the hope
of establishing an effective and credible structure for Internet governance.
That structure will help promote innovation and new services that benefit
millions of Internet users," said Galvin.
About VeriSign
VeriSign, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRSN), delivers critical infrastructure services
that make the Internet and telecommunications networks more intelligent,
reliable and secure. Every day VeriSign helps thousands of businesses
and millions of consumers connect, communicate, and transact with confidence.
Additional news and information about the company is available at http://www.verisign.com.
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