ICANN to Shortly Announce .NET Operator

[Dave Zan]

http://news.webhosting.info/t-4740/

ICANN to Shortly Announce .NET Operator

10th March 2005
The search for a new .net operator, which began with Request for Proposals on 10 December 2004, will soon reach its final stages on 28th March 2005, when Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will release the evaluators' final report and rankings of the five applicants - Aflilias, CORE++, DENIC, Sentan, and VeriSign.

Once the report is published on 28th March, the Internet community will be invited to review the report and submit comments. ICANN will promptly enter negotiations with the top-ranked applicant to reach a mutually acceptable registry agreement.

On 7 February 2005, ICANN announced that Telcordia Technologies, Inc. had been retained to conduct the independent evaluation of the applications. Telcordia has been advised in its work by an international team of DNS experts assembled by ICANN. In association with the announcement of Telcordia, ICANN also posted an "Advisory Regarding Neutrality of Independent Evaluators", which has also been reviewed with each of the applicants.

Telcordia has been conducting scoring and evaluation activities since its appointment, and has now completed its preliminary written report noting substantive comments and questions on each applicant. Telcordia is also conducting site visits at each of the applicants’ facilities. As provided in the RFP process, the preliminary written report on each applicant will be provided to that applicant only (as soon as the site visits are concluded), and each applicant will be allowed to respond to the report in writing.

Just for fun, are the mods interested in putting up a "who will manage the .net
registry?" guessing contest?

It won't be long now! Stay tuned!

Better yet, start placing your bets! :-D

 

[Anthony Ng]

Official ICANN announcement at:

http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-2-09mar05.htm

And yes, 28 March 2005 is the day!

 

[unclewilco]

looks like VeriSign got it.. (or not lose it anyway)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/29/verisign_keeps_net/

 

[seeker]

thats terrible!
I was looking forward for the free 25 .nets and the $1 regs for the next year from afilias... which would have ruined the .net market as well...

 

[actnow]

It was logical that Verisign would win.

However, they should have promised a number of improvements.

Wonder if we will see them? Or, will the promises be watered down?

If Verisign does nothing aggressively to improve the image of .net.
It will lose ground to the newer tlds.

 

[Rubber Duck]

thats terrible!
I was looking forward for the free 25 .nets and the $1 regs for the next year from afilias... which would have ruined the .net market as well...

I have to say that it disappointing. It will seem to do nothing to revitalise the dot net registry. I was looking for a significant raising of the profile of the dot net registry. It looks as though the benign neglect will continue. It will also do nothing to remove the impression that TLDs are an American preserve.

Regards
Dave Wrixon

 

[seeker]

I think there should be a restriction of 1 tld per company.
That would really help in creating a healthy competitive environment...

 

[Dave Zan]

It's finally decided:

http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-08jun05.htm

ICANN Board Designates VeriSign to Retain Control of .NET Registry

Marina del Rey, CA - 8 June 2005 - ICANN's Board has named VeriSign,
Inc. as the designated .NET successor registry. ICANN has also approved
entering into a new agreement with VeriSign for their continued
management of the .NET registry for six additional years. This
announcement is the culmination of the .NET RFP and successor registry
process that began on 6 March 2004 and included an independent
evaluation of VeriSign and four other applicants.

In taking this action ICANN's Board considered the entire RFP Process,
an independent evaluator's report, Internet community comments and the
terms of the new agreement.

ICANN hired Telcordia Technologies, Inc. (an independent third party) to
conduct the evaluation of the applications and the qualifications of the
applicants. In April, Telcordia declared that all five applicants were
capable of running the registry for .NET but gave the highest ranking to
the incumbent registry, VeriSign. In May, Telcordia confirmed this
ranking after evaluating an additional round of comments from all five
applicants.

VeriSign's current agreement for .NET is scheduled to run out on 30 June
2005. The agreed framework for ICANN and VeriSign's new arrangement will
be set out in a new .NET Registry agreement which will strike a balance
between innovation and business certainty, with the need to ensure
competition, security and stability in the domain name system.

Commenting on the designation, Dr. Paul Twomey, President and CEO of
ICANN, stated: "We would like to thank all five qualified applicants,
the entire Internet community, ICANN's Generic Supporting Organization,
and Telcordia for the work in making this a successful process."