Internet overseeing body ICANN has released a revised contract for all dotcoms which it hopes will finally end a huge legal fight at the heart of the internet.
Significant changes have been made to the deal - which will hand control of all dotcom domains to current owner VeriSign until 2012 - following widespread criticism from the Internet industry.
The new agreement, hailed back in October as bringing in a "new era" for the Internet by ICANN head Paul Twomey,- contains several important alterations.
They are:
- Removal of a transaction fee that would have been charged to all companies selling a dotcom domain.
- A new direct contribution that VeriSign pays to ICANN direct.
- Some limits on VeriSign's price-rising powers.
- Reduced scope for VeriSign to sell personalised data to third-parties.
- Marginally increased control over VeriSign's ability to introduce changes to the existing dotcom business model. |
(Read More: The Register)
With that contract VeriSign may (and probably will) develope an auction service where all expired domains will be auctioned off to the highest bidder, and they could even let owners list their names during active status through that service. That would change the current model of domaining, and will affect drop cachers, brokers, and almost anyone who sells/buys domains. |