During its meetings in Rome, the Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers essentially decided to take the first steps towards "designating a successor operator for the .net registry." More specifically, ICANN is expected to unveil a formal process by June 30 2004 to choose the next .net operator. The current .net registry contract is scheduled to expire in 2005; however, incumbent Verisign would be eligible to rebid.

See
http://www.internetdemocracyproject.org/#highlights

Sincerely,
Christopher Chiu
Technology Policy Analyst
American Civil Liberties Union