Site Finder and Internet Governance Jonathan Weinberg*
Site Finder and Internet Governance Jonathan Weinberg* I. INTRODUCTION On September 15, 2003, VeriSign, Inc. — the company that operates the databases that allow Internet users to reach any Internet resource ending in “.com” or “.net” — introduced a new service it called Site Finder. Less than three weeks later, after widespread protest from the technical community, at least three lawsuits, and a stern demand from ICANN (the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers, which has undertaken responsibility for managing the Internet domain name space), VeriSign agreed to shut Site Finder down.1 In between those dates, the Internet community saw a passionate debate over the roles of ICANN, VeriSign, and the Internet’s technical aristocracy in managing the domain name space. VeriSign has charged that its opponents’ reactions were the product of “obsolete thinking” that would disable it from “build[ing] a commercial business.”2 ICANN, for its part, is seeking to enact a procedure under which top-level domain name registry operators such as VeriSign must seek ICANN’s approval before offering new services or taking any “significant actions that . could affect the operational stability, reliability, security or global interoperability of . the Internet.”3 Some see fault on all sides: “It's hard to say,” writes one commentator, “in this case who is being more anti-competitive, ICANN or VeriSign.”4 In this essay, I will try to unpack the Site Finder story. In Part I, I will explain what VeriSign did, and how others reacted. In Part II, I’ll address the Site Finder service from a technical standpoint, and in Part III from a regulatory one.
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