IP: The final official press release on new ICANN/NSI/DOC deal

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

ICANN, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Network Solutions, Inc., Announce
Tentative Agreements
on Future of Domain Name System

(Marina del Rey, CA) -- The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN) announced today that it had tentatively reached a set of
agreements with the U.S. Department of Commerce and Network Solutions, Inc.
(NSI), to resolve outstanding differences among the three parties.

The agreements have been posted for a thirty-day public comment period on
the ICANN website at http://www.icann.org/agreements.htm and will come
before the Board for final consideration at its November meeting.

"The ICANN Board is pleased that the lengthy negotiations over these issues
have produced a workable structure based on compromises by all sides," said
Esther Dyson, Interim Chairman of the ICANN Initial Board. "Our next step is
to consider the input of the engineers, businesses, academics, individual
users and other interested parties that make up the worldwide Internet. We
look forward to welcoming Network Solutions as an ICANN accredited registrar
and to working with them and the community to develop consensus policies
regarding the management of the Domain Name System."

The agreements consist of: (1) a Registry Agreement between ICANN and NSI;
(2) a revised Registrar Accreditation Agreement between ICANN and all
registrars in .com, .net, and .org;  (3) a revised post-testbed
Registrar-License and Agreement between NSI as registry and registrars; (4)
an amendment to the Cooperative Agreement between the Department of Commerce
and NSI; and (5) an amendment to the Memorandum of Understanding between the
Department of Commerce and NSI.

Among the key provisions set forth in the agreements:

--NSI will recognize ICANN and agree to operate the .com, .org and .net
registries in accordance with the Registry Agreement between ICANN and NSI
and future consensus policies adopted by ICANN.

--NSI agrees to become an ICANN accredited registrar for the .com, .org, and
.net domains.  The ICANN accreditation agreement has been revised to include
improvements suggested by registrars during the testbed phase.

--NSI has agreed to participate in the funding of ICANN through registry and
registrar fees, provided that they are equitably apportioned.

--All accredited registrars (including NSI) will be required to provide
continued public access to "WHOIS" data.

--The InterNIC website will be maintained as a public information site with
a directory of links to accredited registrars.

"Today's agreements signal the end of the months of uncertainty which have
limited ICANN's ability to address its responsibilities," said Mike Roberts,
ICANN's Interim President & CEO. "Subject to the comments of the global
Internet community, the staff and I look forward to working with the Board
and the community to implement these agreements."

About ICANN:
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the
non-profit corporation that was formed to assume responsibility for the IP
address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, and domain name
system management functions now performed under U.S. Government contract by
IANA and other entities.

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