Major Questions Remain Over Net Names Plan

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October 01, 1998 (1:37 PM EDT)

By John Borland,

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- As the federal government begins to deliberate over private-sector proposals for privatizing the Internet's domain name system, major players are criticizing the leading plan from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.

Proposals for creating a self-governing Internet address system were due to the Commerce Department Thursday, capping nearly four months of international meetings, heated e-mail discussions, and closed-door negotiations.

But Network Solutions CEO Gabe Battista said the leading plan, written by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), did not yet represent a final Internetwide consensus.

Battista spoke on a panel discussion on the future of the Net's domain name system at the ISPCon '98 trade show here in San Jose, Calif., Thursday.

The IANA, led by University of Southern California researcher Jon Postel, is the government contractor that manages the technical aspects of the Internet's address system and has been the most dominant player in the domain name debates.

"I think we're almost there, but not quite," Battista said. "I think at least three drafts have been submitted [to the Commerce Department]. The government did not designate one group to be the keeper of the keys to the draft."

All the competing privatization plans outline the creation of a new nonprofit corporation that will govern domain name policy-making and manage the assignment process for Internet addresses and names. Once created, the new organization will be called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names, or ICANN.

The nonprofit group will likely remain virtually unknown outside the technical and legal worlds. But it will wield a significant amount of power over the future of the Internet -- deciding policy on new top-level domain names, allocation of address space, and other Internet real estate issues that will translate into multimillion- or billion-dollar decisions for trademark holders, ISPs, and domain name businesses.

These high stakes have provoked considerable controversy over how the new group should be governed, who should control its board of directors, and who the group should be accountable to for its decisions.

Herndon, Va.-based Network Solutions is the largest domain name registrar in the world, so its voice will carry substantial weight in the U.S. governments' final decision on how to privatize domain name responsibility.

"There were some things that were eliminated we think were important. I think we've almost converged, but not quite."
-- Gabe Battista
Network Solutions

The company spent several weeks behind closed doors negotiating with the IANA last month in an effort to reach a compromise. The two groups jointly released a plan in mid-September, but IANA officials later modified it without Network Solutions' input.

"There were some things that were eliminated we think were important," Battista said. "I think we've almost converged, but not quite."

At least one of the deleted articles would have protected existing government contracts dealing with domain names -- such as the government's agreement with Network Solutions.

At least two other competing drafts of the privatization plan have been submitted to the Commerce Department. The Electronic Frontier Foundation modified the IANA plan to provide greater focus on open proceedings, international human rights issues, and protections against monopolies.

Another group has submitted a proposal they say better represents the consensus points of the summer's international series of meetings of the International Forum on the White Paper, a coalition of ISPs, Net technical authorities, policy groups, and individual activists.

Complicating the debate is the lack of any clear legal ground by which the government can ratify any version the private sector's proposals. In a policy statement released in June, presidential technology adviser Ira Magaziner called for a broad Internet consensus, but did not say precisely how that consensus would be approved.

"Someone has to make a decision. Maybe it's Magaziner," Battista said. "There's still a lot of issues. We will never be there 100 percent."

Commerce department officials said Wednesday that they would allow at least 10 days of public comment on the privatization drafts and would actively soliciting input from governments in Europe and elsewhere.

Other domain name system authorities said the transition could stretch on for months without serious harm to the Internet's stability.

"There's nothing magical about the Oct. 1 date," said Anthony Rutkowski, director of the Center for the Next Generation Internet and a General Magic consultant who has written extensively on the domain name issues. "The Internet will go on."