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Ambler On The Net [ambler.net]

I think this is a brand new tactic on the part of VeriSign, to categorize it as a "non-registry service".

That seems to escalate things to a new level, in that it seems to be an admission of abusing their monopoly in the Registry for the provision of a NON-REGISTRY SERVICE.

It had been my understanding that previously their position would have been that it would have been categorized as a Registry service, but one that didn't need approval due to it being "free" (i.e. needs no contract amendment). However, giving advantage for the provision of a non-registry service seems to be MUCH WORSE. Suppose that NON-REGISTRY SERVICE was a REGISTRAR SERVICE, for example, and VeriSign abused its monopoly to advantage one of their partners in that space? Can someone say "WLS"?

Clearly, VeriSign's abusive and monopolistic business practises need to be examined at the highest levels of government and by regulators.

while the Internet has been used for innovative purposes over the last decade, the core infrastructure has suffered from a lack of innovation

On the contrary, the core infrastructure has prospered from the lack of innovation---at least the lack of semantic/commercial/political innovation in the infrastructure. The basic Internet infrastructure has remained mostly neutral by being primitive, and indifferent to the meanings of the messages. Verisign's introduction of real-world semantics at the infrastructural level of DNS degrades the value of the semantically neutral infrastructure, whether their semantic ideas are good or not. Real world semantics simply doesn't belong at the DNS level.

So, we need to take a step backwards with DNS infrastructure, and provide a system of meaningless handles that are entirely free of meaning. DNS is a portable address service, not a semantically driven "navigation tool." A semantics-free DNS using meaningless handles would provide a neutral infrastructure on top of which Verisign and others could compete to provide meaningful navigational tools and other services.

Bob Frankston has already explained [circleid.com] how an institution running a large name server could put a neutral DNS could online tomorrow, within a 3d-level domain of the current DNS. It's time to just do it.

"there is no data to indicate that the core operation of the Domain Name System or stability of the Internet has been adversely affected"