VeriSign Sues ICANN Over Control Of The Internet

Legal Issues

from the had-to-happen-sooner-or-later dept

The only thing really surprising about this lawsuit is that it took so long to get filed. VeriSign is suing ICANN over ICANN’s efforts to stop their much-ridiculed SiteFinder service. The case will certainly push forward the question of who really controls the internet. The problem here is that both sides in this case are going to come out of it looking badly. While SiteFinder wasn’t as evil as many made it out to be, the way they put it together and basically changed the way parts of the internet work without getting permission is problematic. ICANN, on the other hand, which hasn’t exactly won a lot of fans in terms of the job they’ve been doing running the internet, has lost a lot of legitimacy in this debacle as well. What it really suggests is that both sides made some huge mistakes. ICANN really doesn’t have much control over the internet, and VeriSign shouldn’t claim they have the right to unilaterally make fundamental changes to a system they were given a government granted monopoly to operate. Unfortunately, this lawsuit is likely to get messy, but it’s unlikely to solve very much.