The Domain Name System provides a mapping service between system names and Internet (IP) addresses. It uses a hierarchical structure both for creating the names and for storing and retrieving mapping information. The hierarchy is displayed in the names through a series of dot-separated fields, with the right-most field showing the highest level in the hierarchy. These are called "Top Level Domains" (TLD). A collection of TLDs pertain to national registration, using ISO-standard two-letter codes. A small number of TLDs pertain to Internet internal operation. The rest have a larger scope and are referred to as "international Top Level Domains" (iTLD). A TLD is operated by a delegated service, called a registry.
For nearly 25 years, the job of assigning and overseeing TLD registries has been performed by the Internet Assigned Number Authority, working out of the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute (http://www.iana.org/iana). IANA has operated during that time with the advice and consent of the general Internet community. Its funding has come from the US government. IANA currently has a joint affiliation with the US Federal Networking Council (FNC, http://www.fnc.gov) and the Internet Society (ISOC, http://www.isoc.org).
Over the years, IANA's policies and procedures have been revised to accommodate the changing operation and nature of the Internet. ISOC's formation of the International Ad Hoc Committee (IAHC, http://www.iahc.org) is the latest IANA-related action to enhance TLD management.
All existing iTLDs are currently administered under a registry operated by NSI, through a contract with the US National Science Foundation. As NSF funding for this effort was withdrawn, NSI instituted charging for assignment and maintenance of new second-level domain names under the .com and .org iTLDs. For many years, there has been public discussion about DNS management and operation. In the last two years, increases of Internet use for commercial purposes has made contention over "interesting" domain names problematic. Combined with this, creation of administrative user fees engendered particularly strong community interest in changes to increase the number of registries and increase the number of iTLDs. Domain names have come to hold economic value. Hence, the assignment of iTLD registration authorities is certain to be the subject of competitive effort.
The latest round of community discussions about these changes has already been protracted, resulting in a need for timely and near-term resolution. On the other hand, there are many and complicated legal issues with respect to domain names and their relationship to trademarks and other intellectual property. Complete resolution to these issues is likely to take a long time.
Concern over the current operation includes two major issues:
iTLD administration touches a number of thorny topics, some of which have been an unresolved matter of consideration for over 100 years. Although it is entirely possible that resolution to them will be found soon, it is felt that the near-term requirements for iTLD administration require near-term solutions. If possible, therefore, the Internet should adopt near-term changes to ease the immediate pressures, making it possible to pursue longer-term solutions in a more comfortable manner. In typical Internet fashion, this means making the smallest number of changes, and introducing as little (risky) innovation, as can be accomplished.
Increasing the number of registries achieves competition for registration operation. There is strong Internet community sentiment that introduction of registry competition is a simple and direct way to alleviate concerns over registry service quality and registry service fees. It should be noted that there is now only one registry for all international TLDs, but that the full range of DNS TLD management comprises multiple registries. Hence, addition of new registries already has considerable precedent.
Increasing the number of international TLDs is expected to ease end-user difficulties in finding "meaningful" domain names, although it will not eliminate all trademark or other intellectual property concerns. Current DNS technology requires limiting the total number of TLDs; however there is room for growth and an opportunity for exploring additional policies and semantics for domain name hierarchies. Again, new TLDs have been added to the DNS from time to time, so there is no precedent set by creating more.
Assignment of TLD registration authority has always been conditional; changes in assignments have, in fact, been made from time to time. It should be possible to extend DNS operation within its existing style, easing immediate pressures and buying time for consideration of longer term approaches. Near-term changes would permit additional iTLDs and additional registries. If added according to the current naming and operational style, a number of international legal issues will remain unresolved and they must be pursued. Hence an essential component of any near-term changes is that they, themselves, are subject to change. For example, the familiar form of domain names might, eventually, need to be changed, as might the nature or number of organizations authorized to operate registries. In the near-term, however, such substantive changes to the form and style of DNS strings should not be attempted.
What, then, must a proposal for making near-term changes cover?
These must be formulated with particular attention to matters
of fairness and stable DNS operations. Although extensive, the
following list is not felt to be definitive and it will be upgraded,
as additional concerns are developed:
Written proposals should be sent to iahc-submit@iahc.org no later than Dec 1, 1996. The IAHC will publish a single merged proposal on Dec 19th for review by the Internet community.
It is preferable to have submissions conform to the standard format for Internet-Drafts appropriate to the IETF, although conformance is not required. Details about IETF activities, documents and instructions are available at http://www.ietf.org
For naming submissions, please use the string DRAFT-IAHC-author-name-##.txt, where "author" is the last name of the author or a one-word name for the originating organization and "name" provides a descriptive term for the contents of the document. "##" is a version serial number, beginning with 00. It is strongly urged that documents be formatted as simple text (.txt) however Web formatting (.html or .htm) is also acceptable. In the interests of timeliness, URL citations to existing proposals will be accepted, however we request submission of a copy so that the IAHC archive can be complete.
Last updated November 20, 1996. Report problems to webmaster@iahc.org.