Subject: Net domain negotiations down to the wire (9/30/1998)

From: Peter Dawson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 20:00:25 +0400

FYI -Net domain negotiations down to the wire......

http://www.mercurycenter.com/business/tech/docs/046290.htm

/Pete
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Posted at 6:23 a.m. PDT Wednesday, September 30, 1998

Net domain negotiations down to the wire

Reuters

WASHINGTON -- Two U.S. government contracts for maintaining the Internet's critical name and address functions expire Wednesday but the two contractors are expected to keep the system working properly even if a replacement plan is not ready.

Negotiations to hand the system over to the private sector continued on Tuesday and a conclusion was not far off, participants said.

The move would mark completion of the Internet's transition from a government-sponsored research product to a lively medium for commerce and communications.

Earlier this month, several of the most important players reached agreement that the system should be overseen by a new nonprofit corporation based in California and run by a board of 19 people appointed from around the world. But some technical and legal details remained to be worked out and late on Monday a new draft of the proposal was released.

Many Internet users hope the new system will allow for more Internet site names and cheaper name registration fees. But major companies doing business on the Internet fear the addition of more names could destabilize the Internet and create opportunities for trademark infringement.

Those questions will not be addressed until after the new nonprofit is established and its board appointed.

A variety of companies and interest groups have been working to craft a consensus reform plan since June when the Clinton administration issued its final plan for ending U.S. government management of the name and address system.

Under the current system, all computers on the Internet have an underlying numerical address, used to route email, requests to view a Web page and all other traffic. Computers are also assigned one or more ordinary names that are easier to remember.

One of the current contractors, a nonprofit group in southern California called the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, oversees the numerical address system and 11 ``root server'' computers that list all the numbered addresses and their corresponding names. All address names end with a two or three letter suffix called a top-level domain.

The other contractor, Network Solutions Inc., maintains a database of all Internet sites in the popular .com, .net and .org top-level domains and charges $35 a year for each new registration. The Herndon, Va., company also sends frequently updated copies of its database to the root servers.

The Clinton administration initially recommended creating new top-level domains not managed by Network Solutions and allowing other firms to input names into the company's database. But officials backed away from those proposals in their June plan and left the controversies to the new nonprofit corporation.

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