Re: Int'l diversity in iTLD Registries

[Aveek Datta <MoNoLiTH+@CMU.EDU>]

Excerpts from internet.listserv.iahc-discuss: 11-Dec-96 Re: Int'l
diversity in iTLD.. by Ron Fitzherbert@penguin. 
> I agree with the concept of shared registries, however, I think the
> comment about "monopolies" is a bit off the mark.  Right now the only
> monopoly that NSI has is that the NSF is not going to contract to another
> company to perform registration services for COM/NET/ORg et.al. -- if I
> want to start a new registry for .COM I can in about 30 seconds, the
> problem is the root domain servers (and the fact that they won't listen to
> me) -- so all I would need to do is either convince the root server
> operators that they should listen to me, or convince enough people in the
> internet that they should use the root servers I would set up.
>  
> In the internet (as it is defined today) it is impossible to have a true
> monopoly -- you may the appearance of such, but in fact you just have a
> herd of lemmings (so to speak).

Of course this is the premise under which the Alternic and Name.Space are
running under, and it is very true. It is reasonably easy for any competent
sysadmin to use his own set of .COM domains, but I don't think AOL,
Compuserve, Prodigy, or any other major information service provider will
choose a rogue/alternate .TLD. The major fact here is precedent -- domain
names are very important to many businesses these days, do or die to some. A
change in root-servers would be quite a major change to one's view of the
Net. Until recently everyone had ONE view of the Net, in terms of domain
names. Some people encourage multiple views; as the Alternic does. However I
desparately cling to the idea that the name
    www.ml.org
be the same at Point A and at Point B rather than depending on the choice of
"registry". There will probably always be some rogue "registry", but the
bottom line is that it is highly unprobable that you will be able to
convince all the root-server operators (one of which is the Internic, and in
fact I heard that the other root-servers secondary off the Internic data) to
switch to your new set of TLDs.

So I guess the best way to look at it is that some of us do feel that a
monopoly of some sorts is needed because we want AUTHORATIVE DNS ANSWER to
actually mean something. On the other hand, being stuck with one registry
does seem too much of an extension of monopoly power; which is why shared
TLDs have so much promise. Heck, as a registry operator, a shared TLD would
be great. As a startup operation I can tell my customers that even if for
some reason things fall through, they can always fall back on another
registry for basic service. And because of competition, prices should not
range too far from each other.

 Aveek Datta           _ _ _   _                Email: aveek@andrew.cmu.edu
    _ __  ___ _ _  ___| (_) |_| |_     |W|   HomePage:         datta.ml.org
  _| '  \/ _ \ ' \/ _ \ | |  _| ' \ _  |E|    FreeDNS:           www.ml.org
 (_)_|_|_\___/_||_\___/_|_|\__|_||_(_) |B|       Work:      www.itc.cmu.edu
   Please do not CC: mailing list messages/responses to me through email.