Changes

===Site Finder Service===

===Site Finder Service===

Verisign launched Site Finder September, 2003, which caused a user to be redirected to its Site Finder search engine after the user attempted to access an unregistered address. [[ICANN]] published a report against this policy stating "Verisign violated architectural principles, codes of conduct and good practice," and [[ICANN]] declared Site Finder in violation of Verisign's contracts for running the master address lists for [[.com]]<ref>"[http://www.out-law.com/page-4716 Out-law.com]</ref> [[ICANN]] then asked Verisign to suspend its Site Finder service.<ref>[http://www.out-law.com/page-3921 Out-law.com]</ref> In October, a hearing took place place in Washington, D.C. to review technical issues with the U.S. Department of Commerce, which gives permission to Verisign to operate the [[DNS]] for [[.com]] and [[.net]]; VeriSign  subsequently shut down the service.

Verisign launched Site Finder service in September, 2003, which redirected endusers to its Site Finder search engine after the user attempted to access an unregistered address. [[ICANN]] published a report against this policy stating "Verisign violated architectural principles, codes of conduct and good practice," and [[ICANN]] declared Site Finder in violation of Verisign's contracts for running the master address lists for [[.com]]<ref>"[http://www.out-law.com/page-4716 Out-law.com]</ref> [[ICANN]] then asked Verisign to suspend its Site Finder service.<ref>[http://www.out-law.com/page-3921 Out-law.com]</ref> In October, a hearing took place place in Washington, D.C. to review technical issues with the [[DOC|U.S. Department of Commerce]], which authorizes Verisign to operate the [[DNS]] for [[.com]] and [[.net]]; VeriSign  subsequently shut down the service.

 

In February, 2004, Verisign sued [[ICANN]] claiming it had unlawfully been prevented from adding new features to [[.com]] and [[.net]].<ref>[http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038-5165982.html CNet News]</ref>. In August, 2004, the claim was moved from federal to California state court.<ref>[http://www.icann.org/en/general/litigation-verisign.htm ICANN.org]</ref> Eventually, in late 2005, Verisign and [[ICANN]] announced a proposed settlement introducing terms for new registry services in the [[.com]] registry. The documents of these agreements are publicly available at [[ICANN]]'s official website and can be viewed [http://www.icann.org/tlds/agreements/verisign/settlement-agreements.htm here].

===.com Renewals===

===.com Renewals===

The dropping of the aforemetioned litigation between Verisign and ICANN seems to have cleared the way for the renewal of the [[.com]] registry agreement from 2005 through 2012.<ref>[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/25/verisign_icann_deal/ Verisign ICANN deal, TheRegister.co.uk]</ref> The agreement and its appendices can be viewed via the ICANN site, [http://www.icann.org/en/about/agreements/registries/com here].

The dropping of the aforemetioned litigation between Verisign and ICANN seems to have cleared the way for the renewal of the [[.com]] registry agreement from 2005 through 2012.<ref>[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/25/verisign_icann_deal/ Verisign ICANN deal, TheRegister.co.uk]</ref> The agreement and its appendices can be viewed via the ICANN site, [http://www.icann.org/en/about/agreements/registries/com here].