Summary of Consultations on Proposed Ammendment to .NET Registry Agreement
22 September 2005
The amended .NET agreements resulted from a series of consultations involving VeriSign, ICANN and the registrar constituency representatives.
Following the request-for-proposal process and re-bid set out in the expired .NET agreement, which included an independent evaluation of applications for the operation the .NET registry (see, <http://www.icann.org/tlds/dotnet-reassignment/dotnet-general.htm>) and subsequent negotiations, the ICANN Board approved a Registry Agreement executed by ICANN and VeriSign. The registrar community, along with other members of the ICANN community, voiced complaints concerning the content of the .NET agreement at the Luxembourg meetings and in postings thereafter. VeriSign issued a statement agreeing to renegotiate terms relating to the wholesale price of names to registrars and the terms Registry-Registrar agreement (RRA). Subsequent to that, VeriSign extended the period for the submission of comments concerning those contract terms.
After the close of the Luxembourg meeting the GNSO Registrars' Constituency appointed Jonathon Nevett to lead the negotiations on their behalf. The following generally summarizes the consultations the were held July — September 2005 to discuss proposed amendments to the agreement. There were exchanges of email and phone discussions that supplemented this discourse throughout this period.
- 28 Jul 2005 - ICANN and registrar representatives held a conference call to establish the plan for going forward in the negotiations. The issues were generally discussed. The registrar representatives committed to furnishing a written amendment proposal.
- 18 Aug 2005 - The registrar representatives furnished a proposal covering the price of names for the term of the agreement and amendments to the RRA. ICANN reviewed the proposal, contacted VeriSign to describe and forward the document for review.
- 25 Aug 2005 - ICANN received a written response from VeriSign, responding to the registrar proposal. The document was forwarded on to the registrar representatives.
- 1 Sep 2005 - ICANN staff met with registrar representatives in Washington, DC to discuss the VeriSign response regarding outstanding issues in the name price and terms of the RRA. ICANN took notes of the registrar position on each of the outstanding issues.
- 5 Sep 2005 - The topics raised during the Washington, DC meeting with the registrar representatives were described in a conference call with VeriSign.
- 8 Sep 2005 - ICANN received a written response from VeriSign regarding the remaining issues that were raised in the Washington, DC meeting. That information was forwarded to the registrar representatives.
- 14 Sep 2005 - ICANN received a new version of the RRA from the registrar representatives, annotated to describe the remaining issues.
- 19 Sep 2005 - After receiving verbal and written feedback on the remaining issues from VeriSign, ICANN and the registrar representatives held a conference call to discuss the outstanding issues.
- 22 Sep 2005 - Additional consultations were held individually with both registrar representatives and VeriSign.
During the consultations, considerable progress was made toward a mutual agreement.