ICANN, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Network Solutions, [...]

(Marina del Rey, CA) -- The InternetCorporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) announced todaythat it had tentatively reached a set of agreements with the U.S.Department of Commerce and Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI), to resolveoutstanding differences among the three parties.

The agreements have been postedfor a thirty-day public comment period on the ICANN website athttps://www.icann.org/agreements.htmand will come before the Board for final consideration at itsNovember meeting.

"The ICANN Board is pleasedthat the lengthy negotiations over these issues have produceda workable structure based on compromises by all sides,"said Esther Dyson, Interim Chairman of the ICANN Initial Board."Our next step is to consider the input of the engineers,businesses, academics, individual users and other interested partiesthat make up the worldwide Internet. We look forward to welcomingNetwork Solutions as an ICANN accredited registrar and to workingwith them and the community to develop consensus policies regardingthe management of the Domain Name System."

The agreements consist of: (1)a Registry Agreement between ICANN and NSI; (2) a revised RegistrarAccreditation Agreement between ICANN and all registrars in .com,.net, and .org; (3) a revised post-testbed Registrar-License andAgreement between NSI as registry and registrars; (4) an amendmentto the Cooperative Agreement between the Department of Commerceand NSI; and (5) an amendment to the Memorandum of Understandingbetween the Department of Commerce and NSI.

Among the key provisions set forthin the agreements:

• NSI will recognize ICANN andagree to operate the .com, .org and .net registries in accordancewith the Registry Agreement between ICANN and NSI and futureconsensus policies adopted by ICANN.
• NSI agrees to become an ICANNaccredited registrar for the .com, .org, and .net domains. TheICANN accreditation agreement has been revised to include improvementssuggested by registrars during the testbed phase.
• NSI has agreed to participatein the funding of ICANN through registry and registrar fees,provided that they are equitably apportioned.
• All accredited registrars (includingNSI) will be required to provide continued public access to "WHOIS"data.
• The InterNIC website will bemaintained as a public information site with a directory of linksto accredited registrars.

"Today’s agreementssignal the end of the months of uncertainty which have limitedICANN’s ability to address its responsibilities," saidMike Roberts, ICANN’s Interim President & CEO. "Subjectto the comments of the global Internet community, the staff andI look forward to working with the Board and the community toimplement these agreements."

About ICANN

The Internet Corporation for AssignedNames and Numbers (ICANN) is the non-profit corporation that wasformed to assume responsibility for the IP address space allocation,protocol parameter assignment, and domain name system managementfunctions now performed under U.S. Government contract by IANAand other entities.