ICANN is posting today for public comment Verisign’s proposed agreement for renewal of the 2006 .com Registry Agreement between ICANN and Verisign. This proposal is a result of discussions between ICANN and VeriSign, and will be considered by the ICANN Board after public comment.

The current agreement will expire on 30 November 2012. Public comment may be submitted through April 26, 2012 and viewed here .

This summary describes important aspects of the registry agreement renewal process, the content of the proposed agreement renewal, and certain background to the proposed agreement. This summary is accompanied by the “red line” version of the agreement and several documents that describe and summarize the proposal. Upcoming agreements due to be renewed in 2012 such as .biz, .info, .name and .org will follow a similar process.

Renewal Process
Renewal Provisions

The existing .com Registry Agreement, like other registry agreements, provides that the agreement shall be renewed for an additional term upon its expiration, absent a material breach of the Agreement by the registry operator, circumstances not present here. The existing .com registry agreement further provides, as do other registry agreements, that the terms of the renewed agreement shall be the same as the terms of the existing agreement, provided that, if those terms are not similar to the terms generally in effect in the registry agreements of the largest registries, renewal shall be on terms reasonably necessary to render the terms similar to those in other registry agreements, except that the following terms shall not be subject to such change: pricing terms, terms for renewal or termination, certain obligations of ICANN, certain terms regarding the approval of new registry services, the definition of registry services, and limitations on Consensus Policies.

However, some types of changes are available, e.g., those that make the agreement consistent with other registry agreements. In addition, VeriSign (like all other gTLD registries and registrars) is obligated to comply with Consensus Policies that are developed and recommended by the GNSO and approved by the ICANN Board (subject to restrictions in existing registry agreements).

Upcoming agreements due to be renewed in 2012 such as .biz, .info, .name and .org have similar provisions.

Renewal Discussions

The proposed amended .com registry agreement is a result of discussions between ICANN and VeriSign, and will be considered by the ICANN Board after public comment. ICANN received Verisign’s proposal for renewal terms and then amendments were discussed and ICANN and Verisign agreed to post the terms of the proposed agreement, subject to community input, and approval by the Boards of ICANN and Verisign. Most of the proposed amendments seek to modernize and bring the .com agreement in line with the largest gTLDs and other recently executed agreements. Other amendments are specifically designed to protect and serve registrants.

Public Comment

Following the ICANN model, these explanatory documents and public comment will inform the Board discussion and decision-making. ICANN views public comment as an important step in the renewal of registry agreements before ICANN’s Board consideration. The community is invited to review the proposed amendments and provide input.

Contractual compliance Review

As part of the renewal process, ICANN conducted a review of Verisign’s recent performance under its registry agreement. The compliance review covered areas including: DNS Availability; Equal Registrar Access to the SRS; Bulk Zone File Access; Payment of Required Fees; and Submission of Monthly Reports. Verisign was found to have met its contractual requirements. The assessment can be found here

Renewal Content
The amendments to the agreement are proposed in order to:

assure consistency across registries with respect to certain standard terms and provisions (e.g., clarifications to the assignment and subcontracting provision and the introduction of indemnification obligations);
update the agreement to reflect changes that have occurred since the current .com Registry Agreement was signed (e.g., updating references to RFCs, and other technical changes);
allow the registry operator to better serve the internet community and protect consumers (e.g., more quickly address certain imminent threats to the security and stability of the TLD or the Internet, and implement two new provisions regarding abusive behavior: (i) an abuse point of contact, and (ii) a requirement to remove orphan glue records); and
align the .com registry agreement with the recently executed .net registry agreement (e.g., adopt the same service levels that are currently contained in the .net registry agreement).

There are six documents posted for public comment. ICANN invites the public to review the redline version of the .com registry agreement; however other documents are available to provide better clarity and understanding of the proposed changes.

This announcement was sourced from :

http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-27mar12-en.htm

Denic,the company behind .de domain names announced recently that .de name server network will get support in Moscow,Russia .

You can read the announcement after the jump:

“The globally distributed DNS infrastructure for .de domains is further expanding: With the deployment of the new name server cluster in Moscow, the total number of name server locations (NSL) scattered across 15 cities throughout the world now is 17. The new NSL is DENIC’s answer to the rapidly growing demand for name server resources as a result of the continually increasing use of the Internet. The number of queries that must be handled by the DENIC name servers has nearly tripled in the last five years and servers now answer up to 7 billion queries a day.

DENIC meticulously monitors how many queries are sent to the name servers and from which places in the world they originate, so that it can perfectly tailor its name server network to current requirements and expand it where necessary. The new location in Moscow (“ru1“) with a direct connection to the largest Russian Internet exchange MSK-IX (Moscow Internet Exchange) considerably shortens response times for users in Russia, the Baltic States and in western Asia.

Like the name servers at the locations Frankfurt am Main, Amsterdam (each possessing 2 NSLs), Berlin, Beijing, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Miami, São Paulo, Stockholm and Vienna, Moscow is now operated in the so-called anycast mode. In the IPv4 network, “ru1” is assigned to the anycast cloud “z.nic.de”, and in the IPv6 network to the cloud “a.nic.de”. All computers combined in an anycast cloud can be reached via one and the same IP address, even though they are physically located at different geographical places.

All name server locations of the .de domain have a scalable architecture and are equipped with state-of-the-art hardware.

Name servers are used to link a domain (such as denic.de) to the numeric IP address of a computer. Thus, they are indispensable for calling up websites or sending e-mails. The related data in the .de zone is updated several times a day, normally every two hours.”