Request for Domain Takedown — VeriSign Withdraws

VeriSign cancels request to ICANN to allow it to offer fresh anti abuse service.

Just two days following formally proposing a controversial mechanism to scan domain names and take down web sites used for certain malicious purposes, VeriSign has withdrawn the request.

No information regarding the withdrawal is available on the firm’s web site.

The plan, dubbed Verisign Anti-Abuse Domain Use Policy, raised a lot of concern regarding government involvement on the internet. It also concerned domain name registrars.

The proposed service would have called for VeriSign performing malware scans on all .com, .net, and .name domain names once a quarter. It would also have been able to suspend domain names that knowingly hosted malware.

Although the goal of the policy was certainly noble, VeriSign’s request to ICANN lacked notable details.