VeriSign, ICANN Reach Settlement

Settling a nearly two year-old dispute over the redirection of unused domains, VeriSign on Monday announced it had reached an agreement with ICANN regarding the group's attempt to stop the company from sending Web surfers to a VeriSign owned search service back in 2003.

The service, called "Site Finder," angered network administrators due to its potential to disrupt spam filters that discard messages from invalid hosts. Privacy issues were also raised, as VeriSign logged all of the error traffic that came its way.

VeriSign discarded the plan after negative feedback poured in, but then went on to sue ICANN over antitrust charges.

The settlement deal provides "business certainty" to VeriSign while acknowledging ICANN's role as the Internet's technical coordinator, the two companies said.

"An agreement could not have been reached without both sides trying to find compromise and new solutions," said Mark McLaughlin, Senior Vice President and General Manager of VeriSign's Naming and Directory Services business unit. "VeriSign's objective was to gain clarity and business certainty for Internet operators."

In addition, the agreement will also extend VeriSign's role in controlling the .com top-level domain through the year 2012. Earlier this year, ICANN selected VeriSign to continue managing the .net domain.

The ICANN board approved sending the settlement to the Internet community for public comment. Following this period, the board will then vote to officially approve the agreement.