Interesting People mailing list archives

IP: ]domain name debacle

From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 05:08:16 -0400

Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 10:58:47 +0800
To: Phil Agre <pagre () weber ucsd edu>
From: Dave Crocker <dcrocker () brandenburg com>
Subject: Re: [RRE]domain name debacle
Cc: "Red Rock Eater News Service" <rre () lists gseis ucla edu>

Phil,

I strongly concur that the transition to remove US government's role in 
funding Internet administration has been badly mishandled.  The nature of 
that mishandling, however, is quite different from that contained in the 
analysis offered by Professor Meuller.  

One example of the difference is in the Subject line that you chose to use 
for distributing his article.  You correctly imply that the current 
situation pertains to an effort to make changes in the Domain Name Service, 
yet we now find ourselves waiting for a major change in IANA, itself.  This 
is the result of a superbly executed strategy by those seeking delay in 
Domain Name Service changes.  The gTLD MoU was in the process of being 
implemented, yet those seeking delay managed to convince the White House 
(Magaziner) to expand the scope of the discussion to be IANA's operation.  

Hence, the single most serious problem with the US government's desire to 
extricate itself from Internet administration is that its effort at 
extrication has involved considerably more INTERVENTION than has occurred in 
the past.  In fact, IANA operation has been largely "privatized" for most of 
its more-than 10 year existence.  The US government's role has largely been 
one of funding and not control, and that funding has pertained only to a 
tiny portion of the overall administrative structure.  Further, IANA, has 
derived its real authority from the broad Internet community and not from 
the US government.  Those directly involved in Internet Technology, 
Operations and Administration (ITOA) are quite clear about this point, 
unlike those with little experience in the matter, for whom this has been an 
interesting -- albeit abstract -- academic or political exercise.  

The failure to understand or acknowledge the real basis for IANA's authority 
is the fatal flaw in the US government's position and the actions that 
derive from it.

Some additional difficulties with Professor Mueller's analysis:

At 05:44 PM 10/15/98 -0700, Phil Agre wrote:

      "What I would say if I were testifying today in DC"
          Before the House Committee on Basic Research

            Dr. Milton Mueller <mueller () syr edu>

... There is, in fact, no
pre-existing "private sector" in Internet address allocation or domain
name root server operation to regulate itself; these processes have


All of us in the private sector who have domain names and IP addresses will, 
no doubt, be surprised to hear that there is no private sector for them.  
Further, the IP address administration structure is widely held to be an 
extremely good example of self-organization and operation, all done from the 
community rather than government.  If this isn't "private sector" then

what is?


Domain Name root server operation has also been an (almost) entirely 
community affair.  Although often characterized as "suffering" from being 
"only" a volunteer effort, the operators of the different DNS root servers 
are all experienced professionals within substantial Internet organizations. 
In fact, only NSI has root server operation as a line-item in its budget.  
Again, if this isn't community, or grass-roots, or private, then what is?  
(We need to be careful not o be distracted by the fact that some of the 
server operators work for government agencies; this activity by them is not 
a result of that association but, rather, their professional commitment to 
Internet operation.)

Domain Name registration has not fared so well, and this is primarily due to 
errors by the US government.  When moving from direct US government funding, 
to user fees, for "generic" names registration by NSI, the US government 
granted a for-profit entity a monopoly position with a guaranteed revenue 
stream, permitting a fee that is as much as seven times higher than 
appropriate for "reasonable" profits.  This created two major problems at 
once.  One is that NSI, itself, instantly acquired a massive funding base to 
use for protecting its position.  The second is that it created a very 
strong incentive for others seeking to corner names so that they, too, could 
garner excessive profits.

Although the International Trademark Association (INTA) participated in the 
development of a "multi-faction" compromise proposal, embodied by the gTLD 
MoU, and supported its implementation, some trademark holders decided to 
seek further delays, in the fear that additional names will mean a more 
difficult time "policing" the enforcement of their trademarked names.

These are powerful forces to align against progress and they have been quite 
successful.  

To the detriment of end users.  

After more than four years, end users still do not have access to additional 
names and still do not have access to alternative registration agents for 
gTLDs.  As one or another person claims to speak for users, we all need to 
note that ultimately, the focus has been on benefits for (a rather small 
number of) for-profit corporations, rather than benefits for users.

The inapplicability of the "industry self-regulation" model is
apparent at a glance. The two biggest players in the White Paper
process have been Jon Postel's IANA, the DARPA contractor that
controls address assignments, and Network Solutions Inc. (NSI), the


It has recently come into vogue to claim that NSI and IANA are equal.  This 
isn't merely wrong, it is silly.  

NSI is making roughly US$ 50,000,000 per year of profit.  (Claims to the 
contrary rest on an analysis of NSI expenses for a poorly-run operation.)  

IANA's total budget is less than 1% of that.  

Further, IANA derives its authority from the Internet community and always 
has.  It works with that community to develop its policies.  Neither of 
these assertions apply to NSI, as most evidenced by its bizarre dispute 
policy (which gives more rights to trademark holders than holders have in 
any US court.)

To compare a massively-funded for-profit monopoly with a tiny, community 
research team just plain makes no sense.

National Science Foundation contractor that controls the name space
and root servers. By abdicating responsibility for the transition to a
mythical "private sector," the White Paper in effect asked these two
organizations to define the terms of their own privatization. The


Unfortunately, this is not the problem.  The problem is that a) the White 
House suddenly took over control of an evolutionary process that had been 
working quite well without US government control, and b) gave the process 
highly unrealistic deadlines due to problems the US government has in its 
contract with NSI.

participation of private sector interests eventually degenerated into
a process by which various commercial interests lined up behind one of
these two government contractors. The parameters of the debate were
set by what was or was not acceptable to IANA or NSI.


Professor Mueller has the order wrong.  The alignments took place quite a 
bit before the scope of activity expanded to encompass IANA.  They were 
created during the efforts to create competition and space expansion for 
gTLDs, as I noted above.

IANA in particular insisted upon defining the terms of the transition
in a way that maintained its own control. From day one, it developed
its own draft articles that located the organization in southern
California and was plainly meant to make the existing IANA staff the
core of the new organization. IANA did not put this draft before the


This is a good example of the difference between a serious focus on 
operational stability of the net, versus a theoretically pure analysis 
starting from scratch.  Pretty much everyone claims to want stability, so it 
is odd, indeed, to see a criticism of an effort to make the current changes 
occur as an evolution, rather than something more traumatic.

International Forum on the White Paper (IFWP) as a submission to be
considered and negotiated alongside others before the IFWP. Instead,
it set up its own, one-way process through which people could comment
on its proposals and it could, at its own discretion, decide whether
to use or ignore the suggestions. In order to develop support for its


A one-way process would mean that the community did not have access to 
iterations of drafts and that no public debate (i.e., public pressure) about 
changes took place or had any effect.  Since this is no what happened, 
Professor Mueller's use of the term is invalid.  

I suspect the problem is that there are many ways to conduct open processes, 
and the choice of process methodology needs to vary according to practical 
requirements of the situation.  Professor Mueller's view that the IFWP 
process was, somehow, superior is countered by the fact that the IFWP 
process did not produce any draft specifications, much less iterations based 
on feedback.  IANA's process did.

To those who prefer the drafts produced by NSI, The Boston Group, or the 
ORSC, they need to look carefully at the processes used by those groups.  
They will discover that, in reality, they were the same as that used by 
IANA, minus the iterations based on public feedback.

own proposals, IANA leveraged its longstanding connections to the IETF
and to Internet administrators around the world, and drew upon the
political alliances that developed out of the ill-fated and notorious
gTLD-MoU. In the final stages of the IFWP process, IANA effectively


"Notorious".  What a detached, professional term.  Very helpful to reasoned 
discussion.

More importantly, Professor Mueller's assessment underscores exactly the 
difficulty that developed in this process.  Those providing Internet 
technology, operation and administration (TIOA) services focused on 
continuity -- i.e., stability -- of the net.  Others put the emphasis on 
politics and alliances.

destroyed any opportunity for a consensual compromise by refusing to
participate in a final negotiating session. One can only ask: by what
right does a government contractor set itself up as a
quasi-governmental authority with the power to hold proceedings on how
to privatize its own functions?


Further this shows a logical error.  On the one hand, Professor Mueller 
criticizes the formation of a ITOA coalition around IANA and on the other 
hand he asserts that IANA set itself up as the authority.  One needs to be 
consistent, in this case by noting that IANA's authority does, in fact, come 
from the Internet TOA community.  

Hence, it is not just the effort of a government contractor but a far 
broader group.

NSI, for its part, did participate fully and openly in the IFWP
proceedings and did not adopt the unilateralist model of IANA. But in


This is factually incorrect.  

NSI developed its own draft privately.  It hired a supposedly independent 
consultant for this effort, although that consultant has yet to acknowledge 
publicly that relationship.  This wasn't an "open" process by them at all.  
They went to IFWP meetings.  So did IANA.  

So?

the final analysis, the IFWP process was inherently incapable of
resolving any of the outstanding issues involving NSI. This was true


Indeed, why should an open, global process be expected to resolve problems 
between the US government and one of its contractors, especially when the 
problems were created by the US government directly?

simply because every serious issue about NSI revolved around the terms
of contracts between NSI and the US government. In the negotiation of
those contracts, IFWP simply had no standing. For this reason alone,
the "industry self-regulation" model made no sense.


This appears to be a claim that the IFWP meetings had no effect on the IANA 
(or other?) draft specifications.  Again this is factually incorrect.

Lest anyone claim that my belief that the real game is, and has been, one of 
delay, I'll close with a bit of a recent Wall Street Journal article:

Date: Thu, 08 Oct 1998 11:46:42 -0500 

Network Solutions Has Lock On 'Dot-Com' Addresses 

By GLENN R. SIMPSON and JOHN SIMONS 
...

By this time, Wall Street had a clear view of what was best for Network
Solutions: delay. The day the white paper was released, the company's stock
price notched its largest-ever one-day dollar increase, jumping $6.75 a

share,

or 21%, to close at $39.25.

...

Wall Street doesn't seem worried about Network Solutions' future. Keith
Benjamin, an analyst for BancBoston Robertson Stephens, said it will

take "as

long as nine to 18 months" for rivals to vie effectively. "By that time,

we believe

NSI will have established an almost impenetrable brand," and will wind up

with

"a near monopoly."


We should all ask whether any of this benefits the larger community, 
particularly users?

d/



=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Dave Crocker                                       Tel: +60 (19) 3299 445
<mailto:dcrocker () brandenburg com>             Post Office Box 296, U.P.M.
                                         Serdang, Selangor 43400 MALAYSIA
Brandenburg Consulting                                          
<http://www.brandenburg.com>                       Tel: +1 (408) 246 8253
Fax: +1(408)246 8253              675 Spruce Dr., Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA

Current thread:

IP: ]domain name debacle Dave Farber (Oct 16)