Re: Shared domains

[Hank Nussbacher <hank@ibm.net.il>]

At 01:31 AM 11/19/96 -0500, John R Levine wrote:

>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. 

Having an iTLD is like having an apartment.  Sharing an iTLD is like sharing
an apartment.  You have to be able to get along 
in order to survive.  What if one of the registries registers 10,000 popular
generic words in the shared iTLD in order to resell it later, thereby locking
out his competing registries from getting their hands on these choice 
names?  If your answer is that registries can't own names in their 
own registry, then what is to stop a shell company set up in the Cayman
Islands, owned by the registry in question from entering the request?
And if this registry has a special introductory deal for the first month
of operation whereby all requests are for free, then the first registry has
basically locked out the other "sharing" registries.

>Regards,
>John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Trumansburg NY
>Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies"
>and Information Superhighwayman wanna-be
>
>
Hank Nussbacher
IAHC member
[The views expressed above are the authors alone and may not reflect
the view of other IAHC members]