IP: NSI Keeps Keys to Internet Domain

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

The Washington Post is the paper the inside beltway folk read with 
breakfast so it is a key one.

free access to article via

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/feed/a57146-1999sep29.htm


        NNSI Keeps Keys to Internet Domain
By John Schwartz

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, September 29, 1999; Page E01

Peace broke out yesterday on one of the Internet's fiercest battlegrounds.

U.S. Commerce Secretary William Daley announced an agreement to 
resolve the divisive fight over the future of the Internet's "domain 
name" system--the master list of plain-English names (such as 
washingtonpost.com) for millions of sites on the World Wide Web.

Under the agreement, the company that currently has the government's 
approval to maintain the list, Network Solutions Inc. of Herndon, 
will retain control over the database for the next four years. The 
deal may allow the company to continue to dominate the market for 
registering domain names, for which it charges $35 a year.
In return, NSI will give $1.25 million to the Internet Corporation 
for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the cash-strapped nonprofit 
organization set up by the Clinton administration to gradually assume 
the government's remaining authority over the Internet.

The agreement will also speed the process of breaking NSI's 
government-granted monopoly over issuing domain names ending in 
".com," ".net" and ".org." And NSI agreed to recognize ICANN's 
authority over many of the administrative functions of the World Wide 
Web, ending a fight that threatened to destabilize the burgeoning 
online medium.
...