News Review: ICANN, IANA, NTIA, Congress, the American People

Domain Mondo's review of the past week and look ahead to the coming week [pdf of this post here]: The IANA transition and ICANN accountability proposal is currently being assessed by the U.S. Department of Commerce's NTIA, while implementation work proceeds within ICANN and Cross-Community Working Groups.

"As NTIA embarks on its work, I want to reiterate what I have been saying throughout this entire process. This IANA transition is far too important to be rushed by any artificial deadline. Much work still remains, and if needed, NTIA should take the steps to extend the contract. It is more important to get this done right, than to simply get it done. Lastly, while we await the analysis of the proposal from NTIA, it is important to stress the important role that Congress plays during this process. The bipartisan work reflected in the DOTCOM Act maintains our oversight authority to ensure the requirements of a transition established by NTIA are met by the proposal." --Chairman Greg Walden, March 17, 2016, Opening Statement - Communications and Technology Subcommittee Hearing “Privatizing the Internet Assigned Number Authority” (emphasis added).

"... Unfortunately, much of the ICANN community has been acting in haste and urgency based on a belief that the transition will not occur if the process extends beyond the expiry of the Obama administration. In reality, this haste and the inevitable imprecision and pressure-induced compromises that result is probably the greatest threat to the transition. The best prospect for the transition being approved is if it is sound, complete, and addresses the concerns of NTIA and Congress. The NTIA has emphasized over and over again, the U.S. government “has not set any deadline for the transition.”... ICANN accountability and insulation from undue government influence is critically important to the future vitality, stability, and openness of the Internet. It is far better to get this process done right than it is to get it done on time."--Congress Should Reject ICANN Transition Proposal Unless Significant Changes Are Made | The Daily Signal (written by Brett Schaefer and Paul Rosenzweig (CCWG-Accountability participants) December 22, 2015, emphasis added). UPDATE March 20: see also ICANN and the IANA Transition -- Proceed With Caution - Lawfare (Rosenzweig) and Stop Obama’s Internet Giveaway - WSJ (Gordon Crovitz)

"The [multistakeholder] process is an ugly process ... the fact that everyone is dissatisfied with this [IANA Transition & ICANN Accountability] proposal is a testament to its success ... there is no one that is happy with everything in this proposal."-- Jonathan Zuck  (CCWG-Accountability participant), President, ACT, The App Association, speaking March 17, 2016, at ITIF

"The devil is in the details"-- Victoria Sheckler, Sr. V.P and Deputy General Counsel, RIAA, speaking March 17, 2016, at ITIF

"... no consensus was reached about the proper role of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) ... it is key that any amendments to the ICANN bylaws be carefully crafted ... This may be the most critical time of the process..."-- J. Scott Evans, Trademark Director and Associate General Counsel at Adobe, writing in CircleID.com (emphasis added).

Congress held an introductory hearing on the IANA stewardship transition proposal (IANA transition + ICANN Accountability WS1) on Thursday. Witnesses were a select group of participants from the ICANN community in support of the Proposal. Issues raised included questions about timing for implementation--can this all be accomplished prior to September 30, 2016? The witnesses all testified "yes" even though in reality the Cross Community Working Groups have missed every deadline in this whole process thus far.

Work Stream 2 (WS2) issues such as jurisdiction, human rights, ICANN staff accountability, accountability of AC/SOs to the global internet community, and transparency of ICANN (corporate, management, staff, Board of Directors), were barely touched upon. Ranking member, California Congresswoman Eshoo, asked about “vulnerabilities” of the proposal, Illinois member of Congress Shimkus asked about who the IANA functions operator would be if  the community selected a provider other than ICANN (or its PTI), and Chairman Walden asked about transparency regarding ICANN’s dealings with foreign governments. There were no clear answers given by the witnesses to those questions, part of the problem being that the Proposal is still incomplete, not yet implemented, with many details yet to come ("the devil is in the details"), untested, unproven, and as I pointed out last week, critical and fundamental accountability issues were postponed to a later WS2 stage, to be completed after  the U.S. has given up all oversight. As I wrote last week:

"... there is always the possibility that Congress--both Democrats and Republicans--will realize it is in the best interests of not only the American people, but also the global internet community, to insist upon the completion and implementation and a subsequent evaluation of both Work Stream 1 (WS1) and Work Stream 2 (WS2) accountability mechanisms, and whether they are actually effective and working, and then decide whether ending U.S. oversight is appropriate and in the best interests of both the American people and the global internet community."

Why would Congress be concerned about the global internet community? Because the U.S. government is ceding its role as steward of the global internet to ICANN: "No government owns or controls the root level of the Internet. Nor does ICANN or any other single entity .... In effect, ICANN serves as a trustee of the Internet’s unique names and numbers in service to all Internet users." --source: Weinstein et al v Iran and ICANN - U.S. Amicus Curiae Brief (pdf).

Although NTIA said in its March, 2014, announcement, it was transitioning its stewardship role to the global multistakeholder community, in reality, this whole process has been about NTIA transitioning its stewardship role to ICANN, the California corporation. Note that sole control of the Internet root zone will soon be ICANN's alone--ICANN is currently drafting a new contract for Verisign, the current Root Zone Maintainer (RZM), that will allow ICANN to make changes in the future, including taking over that additional role itself. That is an unprecedented concentration of power that NTIA is proposing to give to ICANN, the California corporation, in perpetuity. Why shouldn't the operators of the ccTLDs (ccNSO), and gTLDs (Registries Stakeholder Group), as well as the Root Name Server Operators (there are 12 including Verisign and ICANN), the IETF and RIRs, select the Root Zone Maintainer (RZM)? What happens, if and when, the "community" decides to change the IANA functions operator (IFO) from ICANN (or its PTI), to a new third party, only to discover that ICANN, in its new future role as Root Zone Maintainer, is now blocking or overwriting the work of the new IFO? Note also that ICANN has been aggressively expanding the number of its L Root Server sites, which according to this map now total 143 globally, far exceeding the number of sites of any other Root Server Operator which range from only 1 (ISI "B") to 109 (Verisign "A"+"J"). Whether or not it is ICANN's intention (now or in the future) to not only replace Verisign as Root Zone Maintainer, but also become sole operator of the Internet's root servers, once this transition is completed, ICANN will have that capability, thanks to the Obama administration, the bureaucrats at NTIA, a complacent and compliant Congress, and this flawed IANA Transition process.

Recall that this whole process started with the NTIA announcement in March, 2014, which only covered U.S. oversight of the IANA functions via the IANA contract. At that time, ICANN directors and officers were confident that a proposal could be delivered within a year, obviating any need to extend the IANA contract beyond September 30, 2015. In the summer of 2014, at the insistence of the "ICANN community," ICANN accountability was added as a separate, but equal, component of the whole IANA transition process. Today, ICANN accountability issues are the sticking points in the whole process. In comparison, the elimination of the U.S. government role in the IANA functions is a piece of cake, after all, the IANA functions used to be run by just one person, Jon Postel (see this pdf, p.5), and, as testified this week before Congress, the IANA functions are clerical in nature, not "rocket science."

One thing is now clear, Larry Strickling, and indeed, all of NTIA and the U.S. Department of Commerce, were, apparently, clueless about the extensive problems the "ICANN community" had with ICANN--the California corporation, its directors, officers, and staff--which is somewhat hard to understand since NTIA had threatened to remove ICANN as the IANA functions operator in 2012:

The New York Times March 18, 2012: "A boardroom dispute over ethics has broken out at the organization that maintains the Internet address system after its most important supporter, the United States government, reproached the group for governance standards said to fall short of “requirements requested by the global community.”..."

Part of the systemic and continuing problems at ICANN is the failure of both ICANN, and the "ICANN community," to understand their respective roles and responsibilities. ICANN is not an example of a multistakeholder-run organization and never has been. ICANN is an example of a California non-profit corporation controlled by a Board of Directors that have legal fiduciary duties including the duty to act in the global public interest, albeit in an environment where various designated stakeholder groups have policy-making roles, and some of those groups have a right to elect some of the corporation's directors. This leads to tensions, e.g., when special interests, such as the domain name industry, dominate and control the GNSO and advocate for policies that may not be in the global public interest, or disagree with other Board decisions. While bringing the Advisory Committees, particularly ALAC and GAC, into the "empowered community" may improve ICANN, the CCWG-Accountability, unfortunately, completely neglected issues concerning selection and qualification of ICANN Directors, other than removal.  This is tragic because so many of the problems at ICANN stem from a Board of Directors whose members appear to be passive, or lacking in an understanding of their important and vital legal role within ICANN's corporate governance structure, or their fiduciary duty to the global internet community. In particular, the failure of the ICANN Board of Directors to hold ICANN officers and staff accountable, has been striking. Just one example (of many): Why would any competent ICANN director allow an ICANN President to spend his, and ICANN staff time, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in ICANN funds, to establish and bankroll organization(s) outside the scope of ICANN's mission? For more see: ICANN President & CEO Fadi Chehade's Last Letter to Dilma Rousseff.

In any event, that is where we are now, more to come. See below the tentative timeline going forward (source: from the prepared testimony at this week's Congressional hearing):

• March 11 – June 11: NTIA assesses transition plan
• April 15: Draft revisions to ICANN bylaws released
• April 15 – May 15: Public Comment on ICANN bylaw revisions
• Mid – April: Root Zone testing begins
• April – May: Public review period on the RZM Contract (ICANN & Verisign)
• May 31: ICANN Board approves draft bylaw revisions
• June 15: NTIA submits plan to Congress for review
• June 16: Congressional review begins
• August – September New agreements are executed:
o Relationship agreements for the IANA including establishment of the PTI
o New RZM Contract
• October 1 Transition complete

Week ahead: Subject to future editorial changes, coming up on Domain Mondo:

• Fintech Startup, Investment App, Millennials
• Mobile Connectivity, Internet of Things
• Massive Revaluation: Tech Valuations
• Digital Currency, Blockchain Technology

Five most popular posts at DomainMondo.com this past week (# of pageviews Sun-Sat):

1. News Review [March 13]: ICANN, IANA Transition Plan, NTIA, and U.S. Congress
2. U.S. House Subcommittee, IANA Transition Hearing, March 17th Video
3. ICANN President & CEO Fadi Chehade's Last Letter to Dilma Rousseff
4. Brazil Insulted by ICANN President & CEO Fadi Chehade Farewell Letter
5. WIPO: Domain Cybersquatting Cases Up in 2015, Driven by New gTLDs

Final Note: Don't miss Domain Mondo's post yesterday: NTIA's Larry Strickling Et Al: Internet Governance in a Post-American World (video)

Have a great week!

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo

UPDATE March 29: News Review: France Blasts IANA Proposal, Berkman to Assess ICANN | DomainMondo.com (March 27, 2016)

Follow @DomainMondo

DISCLAIMER

IANA Transition Comment Deadline, Domain Mondo Editor Comments

The deadline to submit comments on the IANA Stewardship Transition Proposal is today, September 8, 2015, at 23:59 UTC which is 7:59 PM ET (US). After the conclusion of the public comment period, the ICG will make a final determination about whether to recommend that NTIA approve the transition proposal. More information including Instructions for How to Submit Public Comments is here | https://www.ianacg.org/calls-for-input/combined-proposal-public-comment-period/.

Below are the comments submitted by the Editor of Domain Mondo:

Questions Concerning the Proposal as a Whole
1) Completeness and clarity: Is the combined proposal complete? Each of the operational community proposals contains aspects to be completed in the future when the proposal is implemented. Is the combined proposal specified in sufficient detail such that it can be evaluated against the NTIA criteria?

Numbers: Complete;
Protocol Parameters: Complete;
Names community: INCOMPLETE due to its "dependencies" upon the final work product of WS-1 of CCWG-Accountability, which at this point appears to be unacceptable or inadequate in its present form as contained in the "2nd draft report" published for a comment period ending Sept 12, 2015.

2) Compatibility and interoperability: Do the operational community proposals work together in a single proposal? Do they suggest any incompatible arrangements where compatibility appears to be required? Is the handling of any conflicting overlaps between the functions resolved in a workable manner?

The numbers and protocols proposals work together as a single proposal, with ICANN as the IANA functions operator (IFO). The names proposal is incompatible and inconsistent and results in creating a second IFO (for the "Names community") called PTI, a to-be-created corporation. This is creating unnecessary complexity, incurring unnecessary costs (CWG-Stewardship has reportedly incurred millions of dollars in legal fees, with more to come), and deriving little, if any, net benefit for the names community or the global Internet community. All of this could have been handled internally to ICANN through new bylaws whereby the gTLDs and ccTLDs could comprise a CSC and provisions providing for the selection of a different IFO than ICANN should that need arise. The irony in all of this is that the IANA department within ICANN has always performed its job well as far as I have been able to determine. Certainly numbers and protocols think so. Unfortunately, as the ICG is well aware, CWG-stewardship or “names community” is a dysfunctional group (described by one ICG member, the esteemed Prof. Mueller, as “a collection of warring interests”), who wasted months trying to develop an overly complex "turnkey" proposal referred to as "Contract Co." only to jettison that concept for a "compromise" "hybrid" "solution" now called PTI. This is all indicative of what Nassim Taleb refers to as the "fragilista" who “make you engage in policies and actions, all artificial, in which the benefits are small and visible, and the side effects (are) potentially severe and invisible.” Unfortunately this is also consistent with the tendency of many of ICANN's "names" stakeholders in ICANN policymaking processes to prefer complex dysfunctional solutions over simple functional solutions, in order to increase their "insider" knowledge and status, increase costs, and form barriers to any effective participation by "outsiders" from the global Internet community. Can we (ICANN and the global Internet community) live with this incompatibility and the potential "conflicting overlaps?" As far as the ICG proposal is concerned, I am confident the ICANN Board, management and staff can jury-rig the "workarounds" necessary to "make it work."

3) Accountability: Do the operational community proposals together include appropriate and properly supported independent accountability mechanisms for running the IANA functions? Are there any gaps in overall accountability under the single proposal?

Numbers and Protocols proposals have accountability built-in, consistent with years of experience working with ICANN as IFO. Names proposal? Unknown. CWG-Stewardship claims its new structures' accountability mechanisms will work. Time will tell. See also #6 below.

4) Workability: Do the results of any tests or evaluations of workability that were included in the operational community proposals conflict with each other or raise possible concerns when considered in combination?

I covered this in #2 above.

Questions Concerning NTIA Criteria
5) Do you believe the proposal supports and enhances the multistakeholder model? If yes, please explain why. If not, please explain why and what proposal modifications you believe are necessary.

For better or worse, I think the proposal is consistent with the multistakeholder model.

6) Do you believe the proposal maintains the security, stability, and resiliency of the DNS? If yes, please explain why. If not, please explain why and what proposal modifications you believe are necessary.

No. Read Verisign's 10-Q, July 23, 2015 (p.29): "Under its new gTLD program, ICANN intends to recommend for delegation into the root zone a large number of new gTLDs potentially within a compressed timeframe. On October 23, 2013, NTIA began to authorize, and Verisign began effectuating, the delegation of the new gTLDs. In view of our role as the Root Zone Maintainer, and as a root operator, we face increased risks should ICANN’s delegation of these new gTLDs, which represent unprecedented changes to the root zone in volume and frequency, cause security and stability problems within the DNS and/or for parties who rely on the DNS. Such risks include potential instability of the DNS including potential fragmentation of the DNS should ICANN’s delegations create sufficient instability, and potential claims based on our role in the root zone provisioning and delegation process. These risks, alone or in the aggregate, have the potential to cause serious harm to our Registry Services business. Further, our business could also be harmed through security, stability and resiliency degradation if the delegation of new gTLDs into the root zone causes problems to certain components of the DNS ecosystem or other aspects of the global DNS, or other relying parties are negatively impacted as a result of domain name collisions, such as exposure or other leakage of private or sensitive information. Additionally, DNS Security Extensions (“DNSSEC”) enabled in the root zone and at other levels of the DNS require new preventative maintenance functions and operational practices that did not exist prior to the introduction of DNSSEC. Any failure by Verisign or the IANA functions operator to comply with stated practices, such as those outlined in relevant DNSSEC Practice Statements, introduces risk to DNSSEC relying parties and other Internet users and consumers of the DNS, which could have a material adverse impact on our business." http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/VRSN/368398346x0xS1014473-15-68/1014473/filing.pdf

7) Do you believe the proposal meets the needs and expectations of the global customers and partners of the IANA services? If yes, please explain why. If not, please explain why and what proposal modifications you believe are necessary. Please indicate if you are a customer or partner of the IANA services.

Yes, unless one or more "customers and partners of the IANA services" state differently during this comment period.

8) Do you believe the proposal maintains the openness of the Internet? If yes, please explain why. If not, please explain why and what proposal modifications you believe are necessary.

Yes, subject to the reservations expressed in #1 and #6 above.

9) Do you have any concerns that the proposal is replacing NTIA's role with a government-led or inter-governmental organization solution? If yes, please explain why and what proposal modifications you believe are necessary. If not, please explain why.

No.

10) Do you believe that the implementation of the proposal will continue to uphold the NTIA criteria in the future? If yes, please explain why. If not, please explain why and what proposal modifications you believe are necessary.

I think all of this is probably just a temporary iteration, necessary in order to end US government "oversight." After this is finished and implemented, I don't think anybody will mention or even consider "NTIA criteria" in the future.

11) Do you believe the ICG report and executive summary accurately reflect all necessary aspects of the overall proposal? If not, please explain what modifications you believe are necessary.

No modifications necessary, provided the provisions for transfer of the IANA trademarks and domain names to the IETF Trust (see numbers proposal) is implemented in a way that ICANN may continue to use the IANA marks and domain names as a licensee so long as it or its controlled entity and affiliate, PTI, performs IANA functions.

General Questions
12) Do you have any general comments for the ICG about the proposal?

ICG should steer clear of the CCWG-Accountability proposal even though the "names proposal" has "dependencies" that might be affected. That CCWG-Accountability process looked like a "rush job" from my close observation, and now the ICANN Board is engaged and proposing changes. I haven't seen any Board specifics, but in any event, that is not within ICG's remit (be thankful). I also agree with the sentiments expressed by Brian Carpenter (Submission ID: 2) in regard to #3 and #6:

• #3--"I don't see any way that ICANN itself is held accountable for the consequences of its policy decisions (e.g. creating large numbers of unnecessary gTLDs for no discernible motive except money)."
• #6--"I've been concerned since 1998 that unchecked expansion of the number of gTLDs will eventually take us into uncharted territory from a technical resilience point of view. I see no technical and operational feedback mechanism to protect us against this operational risk in the proposal."

Also, while I do not agree with some of the specifics, I am sympathetic to the frustration expressed in the comments submitted by Parminder Jeet Singh (Submission ID: 19).

-- John Poole, Editor, Domain Mondo

Read other comments submitted here.


Follow @DomainMondo

DISCLAIMER

NTIA Will Extend ICANN IANA Contract to September 30, 2016

Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator, Lawrence E. Strickling, has announced plans to "extend our IANA contract with ICANN for one year to September 30, 2016. Beyond 2016, we have options to extend the contract for up to three additional years if needed. This one-year extension will provide the community with the time it needs to finish its work. The groups are already far along in planning the IANA transition and are currently taking comments on their IANA transition proposals. As we indicated in a recent Federal Register notice, we encourage all interested stakeholders to engage and weigh in on the proposals. The Internet’s global multistakeholder community has made tremendous progress in its work to develop a proposal to transition the historic stewardship role NTIA has played related to Internet’s domain name system (DNS)." 

Strickling also announced:

"In preparation for the implementation phase of the IANA stewardship transition, NTIA also asked Verisign and ICANN to submit a proposal detailing how best to remove NTIA’s administrative role associated with root zone management, which the groups working on the transition were not asked to address. We asked Verisign and ICANN to submit a proposal detailing how best to do this in a manner that maintains the security, stability and resiliency of the DNS. Under the current root zone management system, Verisign edits and distributes the root zone file after it has received authorization to do so from NTIA. Verisign and ICANN have developed a proposal that outlines a technical plan and testing regime for phasing out the largely clerical role NTIA currently plays in this process. The testing will occur in a parallel environment that will not disrupt the current operation of the root zone management system. These developments will help ensure that the IANA transition will be done in a manner that preserves the security and stability of the DNS."

Verisign/ICANN Proposal in Response to NTIA Request (pdf): The Root Zone Management System (RZMS) is a set of tools, which currently allows ICANN as the IANA Functions Operator (IFO), Verisign, as the Root Zone Maintainer (RZM), and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) at the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC), as the Root Zone Administrator (RZA), to collaboratively manage the changes to the Internet’s single authoritative root zone ... There are three key components of the DNS that are managed by the RZM in conjunction with the IFO and are required for proper function of the DNS root. Those key components are 1) the root zone, 2) the root-servers.net zone, and 3) the root hints file. All three of these work products are produced utilizing the same process and procedures and currently require NTIA authorization for changes. In addition, there are supplemental items that require NTIA authorization related to DNSSEC specifically, the Signed Key Response (SKR).

Q. Will there be a new agreement to perform the RZM function post the IANA stewardship transition?
A. Verisign performs the RZM function today, including multiple daily publications of the root zone file, under the Cooperative Agreement with the Department of Commerce. It is anticipated that performance of the RZM function would be conducted by Verisign under a new RZM agreement with ICANN once the RZM function obligations under the Cooperative Agreement are completed.
Q. Has a final new RZM agreement between Verisign and ICANN been completed?
A. No.
Q. Does this proposal or the anticipated new RZA agreement impact Verisign’s .com or .net registry agreements?
A. No. This proposal and the IANA stewardship transition do not impact the .com and net registry agreements. RZM is a separate function performed at no cost as a public service by Verisign spanning three decades.
Q. How will this impact the Cooperative Agreement between NTIA and Verisign?
A. The Cooperative Agreement between NTIA and Verisign will continue. Once the parallel testing for root zone management has proven capable of performance in the absence of the RZA / NTIA role and the IANA Stewardship transition implemented, NTIA and Verisign will amend the Cooperative Agreement as appropriate.

See also on Domain Mondo: ICANN Accountability, IANA Transition, Proposals, Comments, Webinars

Follow @DomainMondo

Will the IETF, RIRs, ccTLDs + Verisign Just Walk Away From ICANN?

Maybe it's just a rhetorical question, but it is an interesting one to ponder: "Will the IETF, RIRs, ccTLDs + Verisign just walk away from ICANN (and its new gTLDs)?"

After Uncle Sam walks away--i.e., IANA stewardship transition--anything is possible--

Beyond just the RIRs and IETF wanting to strip ICANN of its intellectual property (IANA trademarks and domain name), consider this:

ICANN's budget, staff, policy-making, time, attention and problems, are now dominated by ICANN's "horribly implemented" new gTLDs program which represents less than 2% [correction] of all domain name registrations globally--truly a "tail wagging the dog" situation. Do the math:

"Overall at the end of 2014, 130.6 million .COM and .NET domain names were registered. Of this sum, 115,600 000 registrations were .COM and 15 million in .NET ... The new domain extensions [new gTLDs]... [were just] 2.3 percent of the global gTLD market ... Overall, VeriSign estimates the number of registered country code Top-Level Domains [ccTLDs] to be 134 million domain names. Worldwide, VeriSign has identified around 288 million registered domains and growth of 6.2 percent compared to the previous year [2013]." Source: translated from German: https://www.internetx.com/news/com-und-de-bleiben-auf-wachstumskurs/

288 million total domain names registered globally Q4 2015--

116 million .COM domain names
  15 million .NET domain names
134 million ccTLDs domain names
265 million domain names are either .COM, .NET, or ccTLDs = 92% of all domain names worldwide
+ 3.5% (10 million registrations) for .ORG domain names = 95.5% all domain names globally.

Leaving just 13 million "left-overs" which are comprised of the "other TLDs" + ALL new gTLDs

These "left-overs" represent 4.5% of all domain names globally--1.6% [correction] new gTLDs + 2.9% "other TLDs" (as of Q4 2014).

Last year ICANN estimated 33 million new gTLD domain name registrations would occur in FY15 (ending June 30, 2015), subsequently revised to 15 million new gTLD FY15 domain name registrations. Where are we today? Less than 5 million new gTLD domain names have been registered in FY15 according to ntldstats.com (6.2 million less the 1.4 million new gTLD registrations prior to FY15 -- before July 1, 2014).

Remember, the Numbers and Protocols communities--RIRs and IETF--can leave ICANN on very short notice pursuant to their agreements with ICANN, and the ccTLDs have no "binding" contracts with ICANN. Verisign's .COM and .NET gTLDs and its Registry Operating authority, pre-date the existence of ICANN, and it is at least debatable whether ICANN could prevent Verisign from joining the IETF, RIRs, and ccTLDs, in utilizing a new IFO (IANA Functions Operator) or even establishing a new Internet root, particularly since the world's largest corporations all utilize .COM domain names--see: ICANN, IANA functions, Ultimate Mechanism of Accountability, A New Root.

So yes, it is an interesting question.

"In the Domain Name System (DNS) naming of computers there is a hierarchy of names. The root of system is unnamed. There are a set of what are called "top-level domain names" (TLDs). These are the generic TLDs (EDU, COM, NET, ORG, GOV, MIL, and INT), and the two letter country codes from ISO-3166. It is extremely unlikely that any other TLDs will be created."--Jon Postel, March 1994, RFC 1591

Follow @DomainMondo