There is a serious side-effect to the proposed .com registry agreement that has gotten little attention. On a February 13 conference call with registrars, ICANN staff made one thing clear: the proposed .com deal has nothing to do with what is best for the internet community and everything to do with settling litigation between the body and VeriSign. Not only is this a bad business move, it will have exactly the opposite effect. Not only with the deal give VeriSign perpetual control of the .com registry, it will make ICANN a perpetual legal defendant. And don’t forget that the special treatment given VeriSign in the .com (and .net) registry agreements has drawn the attention of all other registries. As the board convenes to consider the .com deal, it needs to appreciate that approving it will not solve the problem it seeks to address: the end of litigation. Quite the contrary.