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Site Finder: Here We Go Again?
posted by michael on Monday February 09 2004, @06:15PM
Not again?
Stratton Sclavos, chief executive of VeriSign Inc., told investors in a conference call last month that the company might relaunch its "Site Finder" service as early as April.
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VeriSign officials said they have taken pains to remedy any technological problems that Site Finder caused and maintained that Internet users benefit from the service.
"Site Finder was not controversial with users, 84 percent of whom said they liked it as a helpful navigation service," said Tom Galvin, VeriSign's vice president of government relations. "We continue to look at ways we can offer the service while addressing the concerns that were raised by a segment of the technical community."
Galvin said that the continued opposition stems from "an ideological belief by a narrow section of the technological community who don't believe you should innovate the core infrastructure of the Internet."
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ICANN will reserve judgment until VeriSign decides to relaunch Site Finder, said General Counsel John Jeffrey. VeriSign assured ICANN that it would give 60 to 90 days' warning to resolve any remaining technological problems, Jeffrey said.
In the meantime, ICANN is waiting for a final report on Site Finder from its Security and Stability Advisory Committee. Committee Chairman Steve Crocker said he doubts that Site Finder can be changed enough that it won't threaten the Internet's underlying infrastructure.
"I thought people were relieved that they took it down and it's hard to believe that there would be any quietness if they brought it back," Crocker said.
-- Washington Post, VeriSign Reconsiders Search Service
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Site Finder: Here We Go Again?
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Let's do the math: ...the company might relaunch its "Site Finder" service as early as April. ~Stratton Sclavos, VeriSign CEO That was to investors last month so that presumably doesn't count as notice, nor does the current news article, but: VeriSign assured ICANN that it would give 60 to 90 days' warning to resolve any remaining technological problems. ~John Jeffrey, ICANN General Counsel Apart from the implication that they're leaving it up to ICANN to resolve remaining technological problems (a rather curious position), it is now Feb. 9/10 depending where you are, so they could easily give notice and go live again in April. Yikes!With ICANN now under fire from both the US Congress and some foreign governments, in addition to their usual legion of critics, perhaps VeriSign feels it is safely time to pile on. That is if VeriSign doesn't wait for the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee, and VeriSign may be growing impatient, the SECSAC home page [icann.org], dealing prominently with Site Finder, hasn't been updated at all in the last four months (how quick would these folks be given a serious security/stability crisis?). And that's assuming VeriSign hasn't already given such notice to ICANN. We, of course, cannot expect prompt disclosure. -g
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This announcement finally got me to upgrade my BIND server to one with the delegation-only patch.
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It's worth noting that as recently as seven or eight days ago, the DNS entry in the "verisign.com" zone file for "sitefinder.verisign.com" still existed. The SiteFinder Web page also was up, several months after VeriSign removed the wildcard from the root.
As of today though, that DNS entry has been removed, and presumably, so has the Web site content for SiteFinder. It begs the question, why would VeriSign choose to shut down the SiteFinder website completely this week?
To be quite honest, I don't see VeriSign reviving SiteFinder, at least not until it gets permission, in writing, from ICANN. ICANN most likely won't give that permission until SECSAC issues its final report and the ICANN Board adopts the policy recommendations of SECSAC.
Remember, isn't NET up for redelegation this year? If VeriSign were to unilaterally revive SiteFinder simply by serving ICANN 60 days notice, it would pretty much seal its fate that it would not win the right to continue as the registry operator for dot-net. :)
Some thoughts, Doug Doug Mehus
http://doug.mehus.info/ [mehus.info]
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My take is that the fate of sitefinder may well be decided by the courts. For example the following case by the Rothken Law Firm and Locks Law Firm as attorneys for plaintiffs.
Sitefinder Litigation [techfirm.com]
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Does anyone know if there were audit requirments to verify the $200,000,000 verisign was supposed to spend on infrastucture and universal WHois back when the 2001 agreements were signed.
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