Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) Supports NTAG Letter on Name Collision; Except For Verisign

In a comment posted on ICANN website concerning the new gTLD name collision report,  the Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) issued a consensus statement that they support the letter submitted by the New gTLD Applicant Group (NTAG) asking ICANN to allow the 20% of new gTLD applications classified as  :Unknown Risk” In the Collision Report To Move Forward.

The vote for the proposal by RySG has 13 members voting for it and only 1 voting against it. 2 members did not vote.

VeriSign the registry for the .com, .net .name, and .Tv domain name extensions (TLD’s) was the only member of the RySG voting against supporting NTAG letter to ICANN was Verisign which issued this statement of RySG Support for NTAG Name Collision Letter:

• 1. Verisign does not support the New gTLD Applicant Group (NTAG) letter on Name Collisions. We agree with some statements made in the letter, but do not agree with the analysis, conclusions and recommendations made.

     Verisign’s own analysis and recommendations can be found in the Verisign Labs Security, Security and Resiliency Report #2 at http://techreports.verisignlabs.com/docs/tr-1130008-1.pdf and explained further in this blog post: http://blogs.verisigninc.com/blog/entry/new_gtld_ssr_2_exploratory

     We understand the urgency felt by applicants to move forward as quickly as possible to delegation. Verisign also wants the responsible and timely launch of new gTLDs, including our own and those of our applicant customers. However, we believe that these known SSR risks must be addressed and resolved, or the ICANN Board needs to communicate its rationale for ignoring the SSAC’s advice and recommendations on these important issues.

     The Interisle study and ICANN-proposed mitigation plan finally acknowledged the very legitimate and long-standing SSR issues previously raised by the SSAC, Verisign and others. As such, the report and mitigation recommendations are a small step in the right direction, but the study was based on a very limited data set and was superficial at best. Even Interisle acknowledged the limitations they faced both in time constraints and limited access to data and that more study can be done. The primary metric used by Interisle was query volume. While that’s one indicator of risk, it’s not the only one, and ICANN’s proposed mitigation plan does not account for the rest. More in-depth study is needed to make informed decisions.

     ICANN should have addressed these issues years ago. With appropriate in-depth studies, the strings carrying the greatest risk (by whatever measure) could have been placed on the reserved list and blocked from application.

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