ICANN’s board, at the conclusion of its quarterly public meeting in Rome, also kicked off a process under which VeriSign’s contract to run the .net top-level internet domain could be reassigned to another company.

The board voted almost unanimously to approve changes to VeriSign’s .com and .net registry agreements that would allow the company to offer a Waiting List Service. These contractual changes will now be handed to the DoC for final approval.

The DoC’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration handles such approval, but it’s a bit of a mystery how it goes about making such decisions. An NTIA spokesperson said it will depend on what ICANN submits and declined further comment.

If history is a guide, the DoC’s approval will come quickly, and will be little more than a rubber stamp applied to ICANN’s recommendation, leaving VeriSign free to go live with WLS as soon as it can get the cooperation of its registrar channel.

This process has taken over two years and we look forward to its resolution, said Tom Galvin, director of government relations at VeriSign. The firm recently sued ICANN, claiming the organization has been unfairly regulating VeriSign’s business.

Go Daddy Software Inc is one of the fiercest opponents of WLS. CEO Bob Parsons said yesterday that he believes ICANN’s board basically had its hands tied by the decisions of previous boards, and that he expects the DoC to approve WLS.

The problem with the Department of Commerce is that VeriSign has about 18 lobbyists in Washington, and they work the Hill pretty good, said Parsons. We’re not expecting very good news to come out of it.

WLS essentially gives VeriSign control over the expiring names market in .com and .net. For an annual fee, people can subscribe to a domain name that is already registered to somebody else. If the registration expires, the subscriber gets the name.

It has been the subject of controversy for two years, mainly due to that fact that several companies, such as Go Daddy, say WLS will, by its very nature as a registry service, destroy business models that already allow people to claim expiring names.

There are also substantial problems from a consumer perspective, critics say. It remains to be seen how WLS will be implemented, but it seems possible that people will be able to buy subscriptions on domains that will not expire, without being warned first.

VeriSign brushes aside concerns about monopolization, saying all ICANN-accredited registrars will be able to offer WLS, and that its will level the playing field for consumers. Current services, VeriSign says, are restricted to the tech-savvy.

The vote in favor of WLS was expected. ICANN approved WLS in principle in August 2002, and has spent the last 18 months ironing out the new contractual provisions. Saturday’s vote was to give approval to the outcome of these negotiations.

This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire