Comments on White Paper.
DOMAIN NAME POLICY COMES FULL CIRCLE
In 1996, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) could do anything it wanted with domain names. IANA, headed by Jon Postel, was the recognized authority, and the Internet followed his lead because he was trusted and respected. Now, two contentious years later, the Commerce Department has issued a White Paper that says... the IANA can do anything it wants with domain names. The U.S. Government's intrusion into the domain name question in 1997, justified on the grounds of "historical stewardship," jettisoned Postel's work, only to hand it all back to IANA to do all over again nearly two years after it had begun.
There are some changes, sure. On the positive side, the IANA (or, rather, a new IANA) will now have full authority from the Government to proceed with plans to reform the way domain names are delegated and administered. Also, the U.S. Government will force Network Solutions to recognize IANA's authority, which they have been very coy about in the past, and has specifically denied NSI's claims to "own" the information in the domain name databases. On the other hand, the U.S. Government could have done this months ago, informally, without inconveniencing the hundreds of thousands of Internet users who want new domain names. Now it looks as if no new names will be delegated until the end of the year. In the meantime, Network Solutions will continue to enjoy a monopoly and make millions a month.
On the negative side, the Government, having asserted its authority, has declined to take a stand on any of the more contentious issues surrounding domain names, where its authority could really have done some good. Also, after calling for the creation of a new IANA, it has not given it protection from liability, leaving it open to costly and time-consuming anti-trust lawsuits. In essence, the Government has said, "Oh, this is too complicated, we'll leave all the hard stuff for IANA to sort out."
So, what happens now? The new IANA will be formed, with a target date for completion of September 30, 1998. The new IANA will choose a group to decide on how to set up, manage, and oversee the new domain names (equivalent to the Internet Ad Hoc Committee (IAHC) set up by the IANA in 1996). The new group will set up criteria for a registries and registrars, and choose them (equivalent to CORE, established by the IAHC in 1997), and appoint a group to oversee the development of the industry (equivalent to the POC, established by the IAHC in 1997). This group will include representatives of the users of the Internet (equivalent to the PAB, set up by the IAHC in 1997). So the entire process will have to start all over again. Will these new groups come up with anything substantially different than what the IAHC came up with? Highly unlikely.
What else has the U.S. Government accomplished by its intervention? For the most part, things it didn't intend to do.
1. It has established a precedent that governments should get involved in Internet policy. Not just the U.S. Government, either. The European Union, the Japanese, and the Australian governments, which made their voices heard when the Green Paper came out, all took their cue from the U.S. We can expect to see these players weighing in whenever Internet governance issues are raised.
2. By invoking a formal governmental process -- the Green Paper followed by the White Paper --it has given credence and opportunity to a strain of nativist American political sentiment that says, "America built the Internet, we paid for it, it's ours, we should say how it's run." This is best exemplified by the Congressional committee hearings chaired by Chip Pickering, who is concerned with how things look on "Main Street." Probably not the best criterion for judging a global medium.
3. It has enlarged "E-Commerce" from a straightfoward dash to separate consumers from their money by whatever means the engineers could provide, to a forum where the technical direction of the Internet will be influenced by the money interests of Big Business. We see this in the guaranteed seats on the new IANA for trademark holders.
But for the users of the Internet, the immediate effect is only one of delay. A few of the players names will change, big business will have a more dominant voice, the cameraderie and operation by consensus that characterized the Internet has been severely strained, but except that users will have to wait at least a year longer than they ought to have for new domain names, very little will have changed at all.
Antony Van Couvering
NetNames
212-627-4599
avc@netnames.com