IP: the great Domain-Name Rush [pub with permission djf]

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

(http://netlynews.com):


      We assumed the great Domain-Name Rush was over last year when we
heard that the InterNIC had started charging a fee to register domain
names. Smarty-pants college kids in comp-sci would have to revert to some
cheaper way to make a point, like streaking, or sniping from lonely Texas
watchtowers. Because at $200 a pop -- the initial registration fee and
yearly dues -- only businesses could afford to buy a true name. And by God,
that's the way it ought to be.


   Thankfully, a huge number of totally hip names have recently come back
into play, dropped by wiseacres who don't want to pony up protection money
to the NIC. You heard us right friends: Some real cadillacs have come back
on the market and are yours for the registering, from the always-valuable
nips.com to the briefly lucrative olympics96.com. (Thanks to our friend,
Cooper Vertz, at InfoBahn, for maintaining a list of newly available
names.)


   But dig this you crazy netniks: there are still far more new domains
being registered than old ones being dropped. In the last two weeks nearly
three dozen .com's have come back into circulation; more than 11,000 new
names were created. Earlier this month the total number of domain names
registered with InterNIC exceeded 300,000, according to Mike Walsh,
Internet marketing sultan of Intermania.


   Now for those of us who can't count zeros, that's around $50 million
buckeroos that floods into the bank account of Network Solutions, Inc., the
private firm that won a federal contract a year ago to handle the
domain-name registry. We don't need to remind you of Web Review's Pulver
Prize-winning investigative report which disclosed that a bunch of retired
defense and intelligence spooks got together to form Network Solutions.
Walsh and others have estimated that Network Solution's exclusive franchise
will be worth a billion dollars. Who's your favorite uncle? Uncle Sam, of
course.


   But The Netly News has learned that the monopoly may soon crumble.
According to Jon Postel, head of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
(IANA) and the man who, more than anyone else, really "runs" the U.S.
portion of the Internet, new top-level domain names will be debuting soon.
(Top level domains are the three-letter suffixes that follow the period in
addresses -- .com, .edu, .org, etc.) Domains like .bus, .car and even .sex
are on the way, perhaps within the next few months, Postel said. And that
could mean the creation of a new open system for domain-name registration.


   This is unwelcome news to the old-network boys at the InterNIC. "People
just don't realize, if they would forget for a moment being incensed by
paying $50 . . . I think they would start to understand the rationale
behind it all," said Network Solutions VP Butch Corson. He said the
registration fees go to increasingly mounting legal bills and costly
infrastructure upgrades.


   But just about everyone outside of the InterNIC says that's a bunch of
hooey. "The monopoly we gave to them should never have been given," said
Karl Denninger an IANA member who wrote one likely proposal for the
creation of new top-level domains.


   New top level domains are technically easy to create. The problem is how
to administer them. The most recent draft proposal being circulated by
Postel would:


   


Allow open competition for domain name registration, in effect crushing the
InterNIC monopoly. Make the IANA the "legal and financial umbrella of the
Internet Society," the final level of appeal in domain problems. Place
legal and financial responsibility for new domains on the owners of those
domains. Allow approximately 50 new domain name registries to be created
this year and 10 new registries and 30 new top level domains to be created
each year thereafter.


   Naturally, IANA, being a cantankerous body, may get bogged down by
infighting and the timetable for this could slow. But outside pressure is
being exerted by people like Eugene Kashpureff. Netly News readers will
remember Kashpureff as the guy who set up an auction house for domain
names. Now, the domain-name savant has already created an AlterNIC, which
early next month will float .exp as an experimental top-level domain, as
well as .bus and .lnx for linux users. IANA folks say that this kind of
unauthorized scheme threatens the existence of the Net. If a flood of
requests for new top-level domain names hits the Net, standard domain-name
servers could choke in the process of figuring out how to route them.


   "All you have to do is have one guy who has enough connectivity and
media savvy to break this," said Denninger. "God help you if you have an
AT&T go out and try to do this. It would bring down the system." God
forbid.


--By Noah Robischon






Noah Robischon
The Netly News
http://netlynews.com
212-522-5876
"All the news that's fit to click."