Mercury News: VeriSign to suspend Site Finder service. VeriSign said Friday that it will suspend its controversial new Internet address search service after the regulatory body overseeing the Net’s domain name system threatened a courtroom showdown. The service had been blamed for disabling junk e-mail filters and raising sweeping privacy and security problems that could destabilize the Internet.
This is a gratifying move by VeriSign, which had been acting with utter irresponsibility in this situation. Whether the company will continue to bow to the clear will of the Internet community is another story.
This issue won’t go away. Companies like VeriSign are misusing their choke points, because there’s big money to be made in doing so.
Posted by: Jim Hill on October 4, 2003 09:35 AM
VeriSlime will fight this as long as they can (did you READ their statement? I haven’t seen such nauseatingly repetitive use of “innovate” in its myriad forms since before the Bushies turned sanctions against Microsoft into a long wet tongue-kiss complete with keister-squeeze) but they will ultimately be forced to bow down. The spineless rats at ICANN really don’t want to do their jobs, but the roar from the crowd is going to force them to — and their contracts with VeriSlime give them the power to kick that bunch right out of DNS and registry operations altogether.
Personally, I think they ought to do it now. Don’t waste time and money yammering about this. VeriSlime has demonstrated that they are utterly unfit to perform the tasks they have contracted to. Kick ’em out and by so doing, send a warning to others who want to monkey with the underbelly of the system.
Posted by: Jim Hill on October 4, 2003 09:36 AM
VeriSlime will fight this as long as they can (did you READ their statement? I haven’t seen such nauseatingly repetitive use of “innovate” in its myriad forms since before the Bushies turned sanctions against Microsoft into a long wet tongue-kiss complete with keister-squeeze) but they will ultimately be forced to bow down. The spineless rats at ICANN really don’t want to do their jobs, but the roar from the crowd is going to force them to — and their contracts with VeriSlime give them the power to kick that bunch right out of DNS and registry operations altogether.
Personally, I think they ought to do it now. Don’t waste time and money yammering about this. VeriSlime has demonstrated that they are utterly unfit to perform the tasks they have contracted to. Kick ’em out and by so doing, send a warning to others who want to monkey with the underbelly of the system.
Posted by: Jim Hill on October 4, 2003 09:39 AM
Gah. The post so nice, I submitted it twice. Sorry ’bout that. Dan, can you have the duplicate (and then this message) scrubbed?
Posted by: professor rat on October 4, 2003 12:46 PM
Worth repeating Jim and maybe Jim Bell should have some input on this.PAM becomes operational this month.See…
Public Subscription Assassination
“If we find negligence on the side of any person or institution…
http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Public_20Subscription_20Assassination
… Public Subscription Assassination .Assassins sans Frontiers. Verisign – Veridead? Robocop
“I’d buy that for a dollar!”
“Who wants to join the LAST revolution? The one to take down ALL the governments.”
James Dalton Bell.
Posted by: Alice Marshall on October 4, 2003 08:24 PM
Congrats Mr. Gillmor on your contribution to bringing an end to the noxious practice.
Posted by: Bob on October 5, 2003 12:17 AM
Hi Dan
Let’s see…You wrote, “Companies like VeriSign are misusing their choke points, because there’s big money to be made in doing so.”
Thinking about “choke points” and remembering the word MONOPOLY (not Parker Bros.), whlie harking back to my Bell System days, when I was dealing daily with our Anti-Trust lawyers, I began to consider the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act.
Are there still any Anti-Trust lawyers out there?
Posted by: Stan Krute on October 5, 2003 04:21 PM
I’d love to read a book that
told the behind-the-scenes
name-names follow-the-money
story of Network Solutions
and Verisign.
Great example of oldtime
govt./big-biz crony-capitalism
trying to parasite its way into
a controlling position in cybernia.
Thanks Dan for your ongoing excellence
and Don Quixotian tendencies.
Stan
Posted by: Lisa Williams on October 4, 2003 09:20 AM
Now they’re going after WHOIS — they’re sending out letters to their customers trying to agitate against having to put any information about the ownership of a domain in the public domain outside of Verisign. So, just as they’re getting their wrist slapped, they’re using the other hand to grab at some other part of the public infrastructure of the Net.