Registrars Applaud New Domain Name Policy

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June 05, 1998 (2:25 PM EDT)

By John Borland,

Domain name registrars applauded the U.S. government's withdrawal from Net names policy-making Friday, and scrambled to start building foundations for a new private-sector governing body.

The Clinton administration said it would withdraw almost completely from making domain name policy decisions, ceding control to a new non-profit governing board drawn from the private sector.

"This is a victory for the Internet and a victory for Internet self-governance," said Don Heath, president of the Internet Society. Heath's group had sponsored a competing vision of self-governance, but he said Magaziner's paper had satisfied most of their concerns.

"The white paper is good news for Network Solutions, the industry, and customers," said Gabriel Battista, CEO of the Herndon, VA.-based Network Solution. Battista's company has held a monopoly on registering .com, .org, and .net domain names, and will likely retain exclusive control of those name databases after its contract expires in September.

Presidential technology adviser Ira Magaziner's paper represented a step back from the administration's more explicit policy recommendations, which were released in March's green paper draft. No new top-level domains will be created immediately. All decisions about what new names can be used, how a company will qualify to become a name registry, and how the registries will operate will be left to the new non-profit corporation.

Administration officials had little to say about the creation of this new power center, other than to indicate it would be led by private sector forces.

But the process is not starting from scratch. Heath said drafts of a proposed constitution and suggestions for the board's makeup had been circulating for several months, with the effort led by Internet Assigned Numbers Authority chief Jon Postel.

"Now that this document is public, I think this process will come to the fore," Heath said. "It has actually been ongoing for some time."

Network Solutions officials said Friday they had been invited to an as-yet-unscheduled workshop designed to reach consensus on the new board's functions. The workshop may include representatives from major ISPs, Internet organizations, registrar companies, and private citizens, Battista said.

But with control over the Net's new shape at stake, this ungoverned process is likely to be contentious.

Iperdome president Jay Fenello, who was a leading opponent of earlier Internet Society-sponsored proposals, said he still had concerns about the transition process, including the lack of guidance for the governing board's creation. If the new board does not satisfy broad interests, the domain name system risks reverting back to the old policy of splintered address systems, he said.

"The goal of the whole paper was to bring the community together so there wouldn't have to be split root [servers]," Fenello said. "It remains to be seen whether that will happen. This is a first step toward a real consensus solution, but it will take a while."

Iperdome -- which registers addresses using a .per extension -- and a handful of other nontraditional name registrars wants the board to approve its own semi-proprietary domains as the new equivalents of .com or .net. The fight to select and manage these new names will place the new organization in the center of a power struggle over control of new Net real estate.

Whatever the final shape of the new governing body, the Council of Registrars group (CORE) formed to implement the Internet Society-sponsored proposal appears to be nearing the end of its life. "I've written a letter to CORE asking them to refund what's left of our dues," said Bob Helfant, senior vice president of Globecomm, a New York-based CORE company. "Then we can all just go home and wait."

But Helfant said the slow pace of progress is good for his company, which primarily provides Web e-mail and relies on a stable Net-names system. "This is the least frightening possibility," he said. "It's not the most progressive, but nobody's going to get hurt."

Helfant's optimism was apparently shared by Wall Street. Network Solutions' stock, which had been dropping precipitously in advance of the white paper's release, was up 20 percent to 39 3/4 by the end of trading Friday.