Shared domains

[John R Levine <johnl@iecc.com>]

At 7:53 PM -0800 11/18/96, David R. Conrad wrote:
>_ALL_ top level domains _MUST_ be shared
 
On Mon, 18 Nov 1996, Dave Crocker wrote:
> 	what are the public/open, established, mature technical standards
> that are to be used to provide a basis for making such a requirement?

Well, that's the nub of the problem, isn't it?

Almost all of the complaints I've seen about the current domain
registration process would be addressed at least as well by shared
registries for the existing domains as by adding more domains.  The only
one that might not be is the concern about similar trademarks colliding in
.COM, but as been amply noted already, there's reason to doubt that adding
new domains will help that much in practice. 

Also, although the standards for domain service are well established, the
only standards I've seen for registrations are the ones that the various
NICs have evolved, and they're not exactly universally satisfactory. If
there are going to be registry standards, they're going to have to be
invented whether they're for single or multiple registries per domain.

I'm putting together a position paper outlining how I think shared domains
would work, the technically straightforward neutral DBMS scenario,
modelled after the 800/888 database, that I've been flogging for ages. 

It certainly would be procedurally easier to annoint some new
single-registry iTLDs and declare the job done, but that seems to me
unlikely to make people very happy.  Either new iTLDs won't be very
popular, in which case it doesn't matter and everyone will stay in .COM
and continue to be mad at the Internic and their ISO TLD registries, or
else some of the new iTLDs will become popular, in which case the policies
and procedures of their monopoly registries will come under scrutiny and
we'll be right back where we are now.  Only shared registries offer a way
out of this cycle. 

Regards,
John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Trumansburg NY
Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies"
and Information Superhighwayman wanna-be