VeriSign given control of .net until 2011

June 2005

ICANN has finally voted in favour of giving VeriSign control of the .net registry for the next six years.

The Board handed back control of the registry on Tuesday at the third special meeting in a month called to sort out what has become a highly controversial issue.

The decision was announced late yesterday - 36 hours after the meeting - and its minutes and resolutions are still unpublished.

At a meeting last week, the vote to approve VeriSign fell after four board members abstained from voting and two opposed the motion. With four members absent at the meeting, ICANN ensured that the same didn't happen again this week.

As an indication of the anger and confusion surrounding the redelegation, ICANN has also produced a lengthy document detailing the entire process. It details each step in the process and the issues raised along the way. Crucially however there is no mention of the significant changes made solely by ICANN after the public evaluation process which had the decisive impact of handing control to VeriSign.