Analysis: Untangling the Web

Everyone wants a good name and the Internet is no exception. But as top-notch domain names become big business, corporates seeking their rightful names are more than likely to find them in court, writes Lisa Kelly.

The US green paper which outlines the government?s position on reform of the Domain Name System (DNS), compiled by President Clinton?s Internet policy adviser Ira Magaziner, came under attack last month for its lack of clarity. Meanwhile, the new top-level domain names (TLDs), designed to ease the corporate domain name scramble, are due for release this year. But exactly what they will be and who will monitor them is anybody?s guess.

Today, the Internet address for commercial organisations is .com. The problem is that, as with palatial pads in Mayfair, there are only a limited number to go round.

US-based Network Solutions Incorporated (NSI) is the registration authority for the global .com, which it administers through the Internet Network Information Centre. NSI is also responsible for the TLDs .net, .org, .gov and .edu. ? the latter two being restricted to US applicants by allocation policy.

Countries outside the US have their own system for domain name registration and their own country code. The UK registration agency is Nominet for the .uk domain name, with further subdomains created under the country code to further classify and subdivide the domain space. In the UK, co.uk, plc.uk and ltd.uk are commercial. However, because .com has an international cache, three quarters register under global TLDs, compared to only a quarter of Net users wanting to register under their country code.

Today, there are 100,000 new registrations for .com alone per month. When it began charging for registration in 1995, it caused resentment in the Internet community, and ever since people have been petitioning the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) ? the US organisation which has overall authority for the IP addresses and domain names ? to allow new TLDs.

Why, they ask, should NSI, a private monopoly, be selling scarce international name resources and making a $120 million a year? The general consensus is that the Internet should find a non-monopolistic solution that is not open to accusations of being US-centric.

Sally Tate, joint managing director of Prince, an IT services training company, found out just how coveted a .com postcode is when the tennis racquet company Prince took her company to court last year over who had the right to the name. ?We registered in 1995 with .com because it is global,? Tate said.

?There can only be one Prince on the Internet and the other Prince wanted to snatch our shop window away. We fought not to be disenfranchised from the most important medium of the 21st century.?

The IT company won the day, but Tate believes that ?the current system is inherently flawed and only gives litigation opportunities?. Prince?s senior IT consultant John Wood added: ?It is inevitable that if you have a .com name you will end up in a US court.?

Wood also underlines the need to reform the DNS so it is totally workable and reliable. ?Without a domain name you have no email or Web site. There have to be safeguards for the commercial community or ecommerce just can?t go ahead,? he said.

Last year, six UK companies, including Harrods, won their High Court battle to prove that the registration of Internet domains based on their own company names by the company One in a Million had infringed their trademarks. As a result, hijack cases may be at an end but litigation is still an issue.

Tate sees the US green paper as ?a great opportunity to put a better system in place?. She supports the proposal for a non-profit organisation running the domain names, but is concerned about delays over the handover.

The Internet Ad Hoc Committee (IAHC), set up by the Policy Oversight Committee (POC), has come up with seven alternative generic TLDs to be dealt with by more than 80 registration companies worldwide. The TLDs are .arts, .firm, .info, .nom, .rec, .shop and .web. The US green paper proposes only five (including .vend and .store for commerce and shopping) without crediting the work of the ad hoc committee.

The Council of Registrars (Core), an organisation of the 80 registry organisations which signed contracts with POC to implement the IAHC proposal, has reservations about the paper.

Jonathan Robinson, managing director of NetBenefit, a registration agent for Nominet and a member of Core, attended the Internet Summit meeting in Washington. He is frightened about the ?spectre of US government intervention?. Core will go ahead in March and test the Shared Registry System (SRS) for domain name management.

The green paper wants a 15-member board for a non-profit organisation to be drawn from private, public and international communities, but based in the US, which will gradually assume the control of government functions. These include database management and root system control.

Robinson supports this view. ?There needs to be a central authority in the form of a reinvented IANA organisation,? he said. ?The sooner we move from .com to competition the better for the consumer, the registrars and the Internet community at large.?

Continuing recognition of IANA?s full authority for domain name systems does not have unanimous support. ?IAHC has links with the old guard of the Internet headed by IANA and its chief Jon Postel,? claimed Wood. ?It?s no good replacing one monopoly with another.

?The framework of the Internet needs professionalism. The old Net was run by volunteers through consensus and served computer users.

?The new world must be run by professionals with rules and regulations that serve consumers. All the parties need each other. The commercial side hates the technical side but someone has to manage the Internet and someone has to pay for it.?