Topic 7 of 40 [internet]: domain names - how to research and how to register
 Response 1 of 5: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Sun, Sep 22, 1996 (15:37) * 3 lines 
 

 Topic 7 of 40 [internet]: domain names - how to research and how to register
 Response 2 of 5: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Sun, Dec 15, 1996 (01:48) * 124 lines 
 

is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism,
* collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
* more info: majordomo@is.in-berlin.de and "info nettime" in the msg body
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 Topic 7 of 40 [internet]: domain names - how to research and how to register
 Response 3 of 5: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Sun, Dec 15, 1996 (12:29) * 123 lines 
 

Sent from: Boris Groendahl
mailto://boris@berlin.snafu.de

Expanding the Internet Namespace

The overcrowding of the "com." domain on the internet
has led to much speculation, name piracy, ransom and
blackmail. From pirates who registered McDonalds.com
to blackmailers who hijacked Tiger Woods and
snatched up "tigerwoods.com" then attempted to ransom
it back to Mr. Woods...by insisting on creating
and hosting his website!

The current Domain Name System is an arcane and obsolete
legacy of the cold war, when the identity and purpose
of a network was reflected in its name. Now that the
internet has commercialized, the nature of the Domain
Name System has reached its limits and can no longer
sustain the demands of commercial and personal users.
The arbitrary designation of "com" has created the problem
of how a company can express its identity by their network
address. IBM, Inc. becomes IBM.com....that's fine when there
is only one "Big Blue", but what happens when companies
in other states or countries (the net is international!)
have similar names? If Widgets, Inc., Widgets, Ltd.,
Widgets Bros., or Widgets Corp. had to face this today,
only one of them could prevail under the current system....
and whomever was first to register 'widgets.com" would
hold the prized net address.

Now, thanks to Media Artist Paul Garrin, and an
international network of artists and friendly hackers,
all of the names can be had....widgets.inc, widgets.ltd,
widgets.bros and widgets.corp are all possible under a
new internet address naming scheme Garrin calls
"name.space". His new company, Name.Space, Inc. has
put in place a network of root nameserver computers
in several countries throughout Europe, with it's home
base in the USA. Name.Space is the new competition for
the newly privatized and de-facto monopoly on Domain
Name Service now held by Network Solutions, Inc. of
Herndon, Va. Network Solutions, Inc. was granted the
contract to run the InterNIC (Internet Network Information
Center) which was formerly run by the National Science
Foundation (NSF) who, as a US taxpayer supported entity,
registered domain names for free on a first come, first
served basis. Since NSI took over InterNIC, they began
charging $100 per name for new registrations, which recently
hit a high of 50,000 per month, richly lining the pockets
of this de-facto monopoly that dominates the deregulated
internet marketplace.

Although privatization should have upgraded the InterNIC
to a free-market business, it has instead continued the
bureaucratic nature of its predecessors--and not surprisingly--
for NSI, although on the surface is a private comapny, their
ties to inside the D.C. beltway are apparent. The parent
company of NSI, Scientific Applications International Corp.
(SAIC) is a $2billion employee-owned company of about
20,000 with offices located internationally. SAIC is the
number one private consulting firm to the Pentagon, NSA and
CIA, and were responsible for the strategy of c3i (Command,
Control, Communications, Intelligence) in the Gulf War. In
1995, SAIC (spelled backwards reads "CIAs") billed and collected
$975 million from the Pentagon alone. SAIC bought NSI in
March, 1995--just weeks before the NSI announced the intention
to charge for domain names, which until then was a free
process, paid for by US tax dollars.

Registering a name with NSI can be painful and delayed...
and the request for new top level domains is a long, painful
process with no guarantees. Enter the free market....
Companies such as Name.Space. are now offering new top
level domains, or rootnames, on demand. Registrations
take place over an automated web interface which upon
completion, renders the newly registered names active
immediately. Users have the option of having unpublished
addresses (much like unpublished phone numbers), an option
that InterNIC/NSI/SAIC does not allow. Garrin's new scheme
all but puts the name "prospectors" out of business.
He suggests dozens of new possible domain names,
and even invites you to think of your own.

As Paul Garrin stated, "The InterNIC/NSI command economy
of artificial shortages has ended...the free market has
stepped in and is ready to satisfy client demand by
expanding the internet namespace to accomodate all."
Author Douglass Rushkoff (Media Virus, Cyberia) adds,
"What had been a fairly limited range of .coms and
.edus now becomes as diverse as language itself,
transforming a limited resource into an inexhaustible one."

While Garrin certainly hopes to make a few bucks off his
ingenuity, he also hopes that others around the world will
create their own alternate nameservers, and has developed a
system through which everyone -- even InterNIC -- can update
one another on all their new names. To him this is
much more than a business. It's an appropriation of an
essentially public space by the public who truly deserve it.
"We're shifting the naming paradigm from militarism to
democracy, and fulfilling the ideal nature of the Internet,
which is virtual space with no borders.


name.space is located at:

http://name.space. if you're already there
http://namespace.autono.net. if you're not

--
* distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission
* is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism,
* collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
more info: majordomo@is.in-berlin.de and "info nettime" in the msg body
* URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@is.in-berlin.de

-+----+------------------- Boris Groendahl
-----+----+-+------++----- Texte Und Konzepte Fuer Medien
-+------------------------ boris@well.com
---------------------+---- voice +49-30-68 83 43 58
--+----------------------- cellular +49-172-322 13 58
-----+-------------------- facsimile +49-30-68 83 43 57

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 Topic 7 of 40 [internet]: domain names - how to research and how to register
 Response 4 of 5: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Sun, Feb  9, 1997 (20:50) * 144 lines 
 

SEVEN NEW TOP LEVEL DOMAIN NAMES ARE ADDED FOR
INTERNET ADDRESSES AND UP TO 28 NEW REGISTRARS PLANNED


WASHINGTON, DC, February 4, 1997 -- The number of
names available to specify Internet locations, such as web sites
and email addresses, will increase and more firms will be allowed
to act as registrars for the names, under a plan announced today
by the International Ad Hoc Committee (IAHC).

Internet users will have 7 new generic Top Level
Domains (gTLDs), in addition to the existing ones (.com, .net,
and .org), under which they may register Internet names, when
the plan is implemented. The new gTLDs and the intended fields
of use are:

.firm for businesses, or firms
.store for businesses offering goods to purchase
.web for entities emphasizing activities
related to the WWW
.arts for entities emphasizing cultural and
entertainment activities
.rec for entities emphasizing
recreation/entertainment activities
.info for entities providing information
services
.nom for those wishing individual or personal
nomenclature

In addition, up to 28 new registrars will be
established to grant registrations for second-level domain
names under the new gTLDs. The new registrars will be selected
by lottery from applicants who fulfill specific requirements
established by the IAHC. All the new gTLDs will be shared among
the new registrars, meaning that each registrar may effect registration
of second-level domain names under all the new gTLDs. It is intended
that the three existing gTLDs (.com, .net, and .org) would also be
shared upon conclusion of the cooperative agreement between Network
Solutions, Inc. (NSI) and the United States National Science Foundation
(NSF), which allows NSI to act as the registrar for those gTLDs.

The plan announced today is a result of efforts by
an international group named to resolve questions critical to the
current and future growth of the Internet. The eleven-member
International Ad Hoc Committee, chaired by Donald M. Heath,
president and CEO of the Internet Society, received input from
individuals, organizations and government agencies from around
the world.

To guide future registrar developments, an association
comprising all the registrars, the Council of Registrars (CORE), to
be established under Swiss law will create and enforce requirements
for registrar operations. These requirements are spelled out in a
separate legal instrument to which each registrar must agree.

The IAHC plan includes the establishment of a non-
regulatory policy framework in the form of a Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) which both the public and private sector will
be invited to sign. The MoU will provide a mechanism for signatories
to advise on future policy evolution of the global Internet domain
name system.

"I am pleased that the Secretary General of the
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has agreed in principle
to act as the depository of the MoU and to periodically publish an
updated list of its signatories," Heath said in releasing the IAHC
report. "The structure we have established for the operation and
oversight of domain name administration insures that we will have
stability and continuing input from a broad spectrum of organizations
and individuals."

Heath pointed out that the IAHC will continue to
function for the period until the new registrars are named and the
MoU has entered into force. At that time, the IAHC will change to
act as the committee to conduct oversight of CORE until a permanent
gTLD DNS Policy Oversight Committee (POC) is established to perform
that function. The POC will determine, in consultation with CORE
and a gTLD DNS Policy Advisory Body (PAB), the evolution of gTLDs,
registrars, and any fees that CORE may collect from its members,
the registrars, for services it may perform.

The POC and CORE will be advised by the gTLD DNS
Policy Advisory Body (PAB) that will consist of all of the
signatories to the MoU and will provide input and recommendations
for general policy matters relating to gTLDs and the Domain Name
System (DNS). Signatories will include representatives from
governments, independent governmental organizations, non-government
organizations, and industry.

An earlier draft proposal by the IAHC had recommended
a mandatory 60 day waiting period before activation of new domain
names, in order to alleviate what is considered to be a major
source of instability in the DNS, namely widespread piracy of
famous trademarks by certain domain name holders. In the final
report, that recommendation has been replaced by a more comprehensive
solution that addresses the needs of all classes of stakeholders. In
addition to making the 60 day waiting period optional for registrants,
the final report institutes a system for dispute settlement involving
on-line mediation, mandatory arbitration (if a domain name challenger
chooses to initiate arbitration), and a fast-track on-line
administrative domain name challenge procedure.

The administrative domain name challenge procedure
would be conducted on-line, and would allow an intellectual
property right holder to petition a panel of international
experts to determine if a second-level domain name violates the
policy that a domain name which contains an internationally known
trademark may only be held by the trademark owner. The dispute
settlement procedures would be administered under the aegis of the
World Intellectual Property Organization Arbitration and Mediation
Center, located in Geneva.

"During the public comment period, we received over
4000 submissions from the interested public, including 100
submissions from organizations around the world and we are very
pleased with the acceptance and broad consensus that we have
achieved in this process," Heath stated. "To attain its fullest
potential, the Internet requires true self-governance. The
Internet Society's role is to facilitate that requirement," he
added.

The IAHC is a coalition of participants from the
broad Internet community, working to satisfy the requirement for
enhancements to the Internet's global Domain Name System (DNS).
Organizations naming members to the committee include: Internet
Society (ISOC), Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), Internet
Architecture Board (IAB), Federal Networking Council (FNC),
International Telecommunication Union (ITU), International
Trademark Association (INTA), and World Intellectual Property
Organization (WIPO). The full text of the IAHC report is being
published at the Internet site: http://www.iahc.org.

# # # # # # # # #

Internet Society
12020 Sunrise Valley Drive
Reston, VA 20191-3429
TEL 703-648-9888
FAX 703-648-9887
E-mail info@isoc.org
http://www.isoc.org
http://www.iahc.org

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 Topic 7 of 40 [internet]: domain names - how to research and how to register
 Response 5 of 5: Alexander  (aschuth) * Wed, Jan 12, 2000 (15:37) * 1 lines 
 

But these new domains didn't go live yet, did they?

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