ICANNWatch: House Democrats Up the Ante on ICANN/VeriSign Deal. They not only argue that the VeriSign deal would be anti-competitive, based on a staff summary, but that the process ICANN used to adopt the deal was seriously improper.
The wheels may be starting to come off the smelly dealmaking between ICANN and VeriSign. Finally, the Department of Commerce — prodded by a few members of Congress who care about the public interest — is looking harder at these arrangements.
The most recent addition to this story is a peculiar letter uncovered by Congress, the e-mail from ICANN’s outside counsel, Joe Sims, showing that the negotiations between ICANN and VeriSign don’t look very arms-length.
Earlier this week, the Industry Standard reported that VeriSign is considering walking away from the entire deal. That would be good news, actually. This is one deal that should die.