Both here and in private mail, people have been talking about Verisign's view of the process. Unfortunately, I was only able to attend the afternoon part of yesterday's ICANN ISSC committee meeting. But Declan McCullough was there, and picked up an interesting quote from Verisign:

By Declan McCullagh Staff Writer, CNET News.com http://news.com.com/2100-1038-5088128.html

Legal and policy questions were not on the agenda, and VeriSign representatives repeatedly objected when the discussion veered in that direction.

"Are we going to focus on security and stability, or usability?" asked VeriSign's Ben Turner, saying the committee's mandate was too narrow to include broader questions about Site Finder.

Stephen Crocker, one of the Internet's original architects and the ICANN committee's chairman, asked VeriSign why the wild card was introduced without giving network operators any warning. "I know for a fact that VeriSign has no problem finding its way to those (technical discussion) forums," Crocker said, referring to the company's ongoing participation in them.

"I don't want to go beyond the agenda," replied Chuck Gomes, VeriSign's vice president for its registry service. Citing concerns of proprietary information and competitive advantage, he added that he didn't think he could guarantee any advance notice of similar changes in the future.

Gomes' position truly bothers me if a registry, given that it meets the formal definition of a technical monopoly, is planning around competitive advantage. Other speakers pointed out that the functionality of Sitefinder could be implemented at the edge, not breaking the end-to-end assumption and still allowing innovation. Internet Explorer, for example, has such functionality. MS and VS. Reminds me of some recent wars where observers were sad that only one side could lose. :-)