IAHC-Draft David Collier-Brown Category: Informational Private Person Expires May 30, 1997 November 1996 New International Top-Level Domains Status of this Memo This document is an IAHC-Draft. IAHC-Drafts are working documents invited by the Internet International Ad-Hoc Committee. IAHC-Drafts are draft documents and may be updated, replaced, or made obsolete by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use IAHC Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as ``work in progress.'' Introduction This is a formal proposal and recommendation to the IAHC on the creation of new commercial TLD names and the selection of registries to carry out registration in them. Policies In this section, I set out the ends and restrictions on them in the form of policies which will inform the specific selections which follow. The Internet Society should not engage in trade. Instead it and its component committees should set policy and standardize technical and practical issues in areas subject to such policy. The management of registries should operate under common law. There is no need to make law, but only to arrange the operation of registries so that they may obey the laws of their jurisdictions, and have access to the lawful conflict resolution mechanisms of those jurisdictions. The selection of TLD names be compatible with trademark law. Where (sub)domain names are indistinguishable from trademarks, the same law should apply. Maximize the choices available to registries and their customers, the registrants. Leave as much as possible up to the organizations desiring domains as possible, specifically including what kind of domain to register in and therefor what risks and benefits they wish to accept and achieve. The selection of names and registries be compatible with previous proposals. Requests and offers made to the IANA in light of early proposals should be considered in the selection of TLD names and registries. The mechanisms should be patterned after traditional ones. This specifically includes successful policies from the trademark and copyright areas, such as providing public announcements and periods for objections to be made. Minimize rulemaking, now and in the future. Cease to be involved as soon as can reasonably be achieved. Specifically, Do not create new bodies, but instead return day-to-day management of the namespace to IANA. Define end dates Similarly, rules employed to ease the creation of a system of registration in new TLDs should cease to apply once a system is in place. Customer's Selection of Domains Before setting out policies, it is advantageous to expand the principle of maximizing the choice of customers: that of to letting customers decide what TLDs they wish to be in, while setting ground rules so that have the opportunity to do so without harming others. This lets us see what results for the most affected community are, and broadly hints at what must be done to achieve useful results. So let us then consider the customers' desires in selecting a commercial TLD, given a broad choice of at least existing (``.com''), categorical (eg, ``.oil') and synonymous (eg, ``.biz'') TLDs. A customer wishing to use a domain name that would cause trademark disputes (say, ``standard''), would register itself in a category where they either had or could obtain a trademark registration, (say, ``.oil''). The customer would need to realize that there is a tradeoff: for some period web browsers wouldn't find them without user intervention. A customer desiring visibility or broad categorization would use the existing ``.com'' (eg, american.com), knowing that they would have to accept the limited namespace there, and other problems. Those include, in the short term, the .com operator's current dispute-resolution policies. In the long term, there would remain the possibility of trademark conflict with someone with a ``famous'' mark. A customer with a world-famous mark might well ask for an exceptional TLD, say ``.disney''. A customer not faced with trademark problems would have the option to register in a categorical TLD, the existing .com TLD or in any categorical TLD they considered applicable. Always assuming that the name was not already taken. A customer wishing to mimic an existing trademark as closely as possible, and willing to run the risk of legal action, would register in a TLD synonymous to the target company's (say, american.biz). Similarly, an organization desiring to satirize an existing business would register an identical or closely similar name in ``.org'' or another non-commercial TLD, at the risk of having to defend their satirization in the press or the courts. A customer wishing to avoid courts but with a name subject to contention would register in a TLD based in a jurisdiction where binding arbitration is recognized by the local courts, and finally, An organization which did not have a name that was the same as any trademark would merely need to register in an arguably appropriate domain, say ``.oil''. If the company used the domain name ``in trade'', it would then have established a trade name (trademark) by usage, and would have the option of registering it if that was to its advantage. The above class of scenarios extends easily to commercial subdomains under national TLDs and non-commercial TLDs. These are not discussed here: if national bodies wish, they can follow the internation precedent of the IAHC, or invent their own solutions. Selection of Domains Given these principles and this illustration of their applicability, we now turn to the selection of the TLDs to create. The number of domains to create shall be 1. the number of categorical domains which will be necessary to allow equivalence to and a suitable subdivision of the international trademark categories, plus 2. the number of synonymous domains for which a registry is prepared to risk operating and which businesses have expressed their willingness to risk registering in, plus 3. one other, as described below. The categorical domains should be created as rapidly as possible, preferably in a single 12-month period, with the option to create narrower categories at a later date upon petition to the IANA. The names of the categorical TLDs should be memorable, preferably short, forms of the international categories as published in english by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, or of subcategories within them, as first proposed in draft-higgs. Particular subcategory names may and indeed should be proposed by the registries. Eg, ``.web''. The names of synonymous TLDs will be proposed by the registries proposing to operate them. The names of synonymous TLDs should be conventionally distinguished from these, preferably by being restricted to exactly three letters in english. No synonymous TLDs shall be created that are synonymous with categorical TLDs. One additional exceptional TLD shall be created at this time: ``.alt'', for experimental use by the whole internet community for such purposes as they may devise. This is specifically proposed to provide an location for as-yet unpredictable needs of the community, possibly including satire and the socio-political groups which are not themselves nations. No other TLDs should be created at this time. A policy of first-come, first-served, with a waiting period of 30 days shall be employed by registries for allocation of second level domain names. This requirement shall be imposed upon the registries by contract for the period of that contract, some three years. Further requirements are discussed below. Before expiration of the contract, the minimum sufficient policies required will be discused as a part of the the normal IETF process of producing a ``best current practice'' RFC. The Internet Society and IANA shall use this to guide their setting of policies for second and subsequent contract periods. It shall be the responsibility of the proposers of synonymous TLD names to ensure they have a right to use them, and they shall warrant that to the IANA in writing. The names shall be announced by the IANA not less than 30 days previous to approval to enable disputes to occur before they go into use. Disputants of TLD names may obtain an order of a competent court of the jurisdiction in which the enclosing (root, ``.'') domain exists, against the proposed registry of the TLD, directing the action to be taken concerning it. The IANA will act as directed by the court. This specifically includes honoring temporary restraining orders as well as permanent orders of the court. Optionally, disputants and prospective registrys may, by mutual consent, put the matter to binding arbitration. The IANA will act upon the instructions of the arbitrator exactly as it would act on the orders of the court. In the event that the legal jurisdiction in which the enclosing domain exists allows appeals to a court from arbitration, the IANA will act as the arbitrator instructs until the court instructs otherwise. If the prospective registry doe not have the right to use the name in the jurisdiction in which they do business, they have the option of transferring their business to a jurisdiction where they do have the right, given that they continue to meet all other terms and conditions of the contract. Failing this, the contract shall require them to release the TLD to the next qualified applicant, or if there is no qualified applicant, to a registry designated by IANA. Selection of Registries Following from the above, the prospective registries shall be selected as follows: The prospective registrys who have already made a good-faith attempt to apply and propose one to three TLDs as per draft-postel, shall be considered first, in the order in which they applied. If they have applied for a name or names which are not in the sets of synonymous or categorical terms, nor are among the terms which would reasonably describe a sub-category, they may change their proposal to another name or names, so long as no other prospective registry from this group has proposed the same name. The IAHC shall set out a mechanism, preferably the same mechanism, for additional applicants to follow. All applicants will be considered in strictly first-come, first-served order, following the above group. This second group will know the set of acceptable names, and so will not be entitle to change their proposals once submitted. The IAHC will set out requirements that it considers technically sufficient to commence the operation of a TLD. This has been better addressed in various other proposals. It is not the requirement that the registry should be able to operate at the capacity of the ``.com'' domain on establishment, but it will need to demonstrate a good-faith attempt to address the technical requirements of a TLD registry. The IAHC will set out operational policies requiring not less than first-come, first-served with a waiting period, and including the same dispute resolution policies as set out above, suitably restated for second-level domains. The IAHC will set out redundancy and cross-secondarying requirements such that in no case will actual DNS servers for the domain of a failed registry cease operation. Updates and additions only may be interrupted. Both the technical and public-policy requirements shall form part of the contract between the Internet Society designees (presumably the IANA) and the prospective registry. The IAHC will set out termination and failure policies in the contract, as per normal commercial practice, such that the IANA can appoint a temporary replacement registry within 30 days of the failure or termination of the registry. Candidates for permanent replacement of a registry shall apply first-come, first-served as per a new registry, naming the registry they wish to take over. Applicants shall provide a refundable deposit of $2,000.00 in U.S. funds upon notification that their application is being considered, If they do not meet the requirements set, or if they do not accept the contract terms described in part here, the deposit will be returned forthwith. In no circumstance will the IAHC hold a deposit for more than 30 days after receipt without accepting an application and signing a contract or rejecting the applicant for not meeting or agreeing to the requirements. In the latter case they shall return the deposit forthwith. If they are accepted, the deposit will be accepted by the IAHC for the Internet Society. No registry shall apply for more than three domains, nor may a registry apply to be a replacement for a failed registry (discussed below) if it has three or more domains, during the term of the first contract. Other than this initial restriction, questions of corporate concentration will be the purview of the courts of the jurisdiction where the registry is doing business. Disputes about the contract will be adjudicated by binding arbitration. If the jurisdiction in which the ``.'' domain permits, appeal may be made to a lawful court of that jurisdiction. Shared Registries All categorical registries will be in principle sharable. Regrettably, the state of the mechanism is not sufficiently advanced to establish such a mechanism and associated business plans at this time. Further, there is a public policy interest in the registries not failing in their initial period, and so good reason to employ traditional technique of copyright and patent law in setting an initial period during which the holder of the TLD has exclusive access. For those reason, it shall be the registry's option to manage a registry as shared, unshared or any combination during the period of the first contract. During the period of the first contract, the IETF shall make a good-faith attempt to reach consensus on a standards track RFC for the behavior of a shared registry and one or more standards track RFCs for the protocols used between them. It is expected that at least one form of the latter is a trivial task. If the IETF reaches consensus, the Internet Society or its designate shall add suitable language to the contract with the categorical registries for the second and subsequent contract periods. As the risk of business failure due to lawsuit within synonymous domains is greater, the Internet Society shall add that requirement to their contract only if it considers that they should be subject to it, that it is worthwhile to subject them to it, if it considers they will not be rendered unable to operate by it and if the Society finds that the synonymous domains are sufficiently used as to be allowed to continue to exist. IAHC and Internet Society Operation The IAHC shall not charge fees, other than the $2,000.00 initial deposit. If the Internet Society elects, it may charge a like fee upon renewal and renegotiation of the contracts. The Internet Society may waive the fee for non-profit domains such as ``.edu''. The Internet Society shall offer the same terms and conditions to the operator of the ``.com'' domain upon its expiry, explicitly including requirements for sharing, or its previous terms and conditions. It shall not offer the previous ``.com'' conditions to any other registry, nor special terms and conditions save as per non-profit registries as mentioned above. Dave Collier-Brown / davecb@hobbes.ss.org