US withdraws from Net names role

THE Internet?s controversial infrastructure for settling disputes over domain names will be privatised in October 2001, writes Lisa Kelly.

The US government announced the move in a white paper last week.

The document backs off from earlier proposals recommending the creation of five new generic Internet domains to take the pressure off the overcrowded .com, .net and .org domains.

Huge demand for popular .com addresses has resulted in several court battles and a lucrative market for domain name brokers.

A previous green paper, issued by the White House in January, came under fire from the European Commission for being US-centric.

The white paper proposes that new domains only be created after a non-profit private corporation takes over policing of Internet domain infrastructure in 2001.

Becky Burr, a senior Internet policy advisor at the US National Telecommunications and Information Agency who helped produce the white paper, said that the ?changes are in response to a lot of comments, including from the EC.?

Willie Black, managing director of Nominet UK, which controls registration of .uk addresses, accused the US government of ?ducking out? of the domain names controversy.

He said: ?'I don't think we should have thousands of generic top-level domains, but half a dozen new ones would have been useful.?

The white paper adds that the World Intellectual Property Organisation will initiate a process to resolving disputes over ?cybersquatting? ? the practice of registering names solely to be able to sell them at inflated prices.