Subject: Suggestions for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

From: Joseph Friedman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 14:44:52 -0500

Dear members of the Board of Directors of ICANN,

I'd like to offer some suggestions for an improved Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers.  I will not be able to attend ICANNs
public meeting personally, but I do have some ideas I think would be
beneficial to the new organization.  I summarized them below as best I
could, and I hope you as well as the rest of the Board of Directors find
merit in some or all of these suggestions.  I ask that you share these
ideas with the board and with the public in your meetings.

Here are 10 issues I considered:

1) The name of the organization

The name of the organization, currently the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), should be renamed to the Internet
Assigned Number Authority (IANA).  In his 5th and final iteration of the
proposed Articles of Incorporation of the "New IANA" prior to
its submittal to the NTIA, Dr. Jon Postel noted that many people
commented that the name change from IANA to ICANN in the 4th proposal
"has not met with universal acclaim" and that "there is
apparently strong sentiment for continuing to use the name Internet
Assigned Numbers Authority and the acronym IANA". And he requested
additional input from the community.  Shortly afterwards Dr. Postel
passed away.  I believe the name of the organization should be IANA, and
I don't know of anyone who would have any objections to such a
move.

2) The root servers

All the authoritive root servers for the Internet's Domain
Name System (currently there are 12 maintained by volunteers, the United
States Government, the United States Military, Network Solutions, and the
University of Southern California/Information Science Institute) should
be under direct custody and maintenance of ICANN.

3) Separation of the root and the SLD

The root (the "dot") should be separated from the Second
Level Domain (SLD) servers.  Currently they are both served by the same
physical and logical servers.  i.e. the millions of SLDs, ibm.com,
uu.net, are in the same servers as the root.  Technically and logically
it makes more sense to separate these functions.  Separating them will
also relieve millions of SLDs from the root servers.

4) The SLD servers

The Second Level Domain (SLD) servers should also (in my opinion) be
under direct custody and maintenance of ICANN.  Currently the SLDs are
served by the same servers as the root.  Another option would be to
contract out to the best bidder maintenance of these servers.

Currently maintenance of the existing SLD servers are done by Network
Solutions (NSI), under contract with the United States.  I do not believe
NSI should be the contractor for .COM .NET .ORG and .EDU perpetually.
Eventually these should also be re bid.

5) Annual fees

I do not believe whoever maintains the SLD servers should charge the
registrars (or registrants) an annual fee per domain.
There is no annual cost associated with maintenance of a domain in a
server.  There may be a cost to adding and modifying information for a
domain, so perhaps the charges can be based on adding new domains and
modifying existing domains.  (It is even questionable as to the costs
involved adding and modifying domains considering that these functions
are processed by automated systems.)  The largest and primary cost a
registrar incurs, is maintaining the database (which isn't seriously
affected by the number of domains it contains) and for customer service
requiring manual assistance (which ideally would be minimized).

6) Shared gTLDs

All registrars should be allowed to register domains in all the
shared gTLDs (.COM, .ORG, .NET, and the new ones.)  Prices for
registration would be negotiated between the registrar and their
customers.  Any domain registrant should have the right to transfer their
domain from any registrar to any other registrar, in as much as consumers
have the right to transfer their local and long distance
telecommunications provider as often as they please.  This is fair
competition.

The .EDU TLD should be a shared TLD maintaining the current restriction
that its limited to registrations by public institutions of higher
education.

ICANN should maintain a whois database (at whois.internic.net?) that
provides domain and contact information on all the shared gTLDs.  It
would also be nice if arrangements can be made with all the ccTLD
registrars, the U.S. Government domain registrars (.GOV & .MIL), the
.INT registrar, as well as the IP registries (ARIN, RIPE, and APNIC) to
share their public whois database with ICANNs as to provide one
point-of-contact for a whois database.

7) The InterNIC

The name "InterNIC" (short for the Internet Network
Information Center) and the internic.net domain, should not remain in the
sole custody of NSI after the completion of the transition.  The term
"InterNIC" is not a NSI concept or brand name.  The term was
used for the U.S. Government contract awarded to NSI, AT&T, and
General Atomics.  All 3 companies have used the term in conjunction with
their part of the contract - NSI for registration services, AT&T for
directory services, and GA for information services.  It would not be
right for NSI to assume sole control for that name and domain.  It should
be transferred to ICANN which should use it as an information resource
(maintaining the RFCs as is done currently, etc.) and a directory of all
the official ICANN registrars.

8) Adding gTLDs

Add as many new gTLDs as possible.  This of course should not be done
all at once, but over the course of time. Every short, memorable, generic
(3-5 characters?) word, in all major languages, should be added as a new
shared gTLD.  i.e. .INFO, .STORE, .HELP, .INC, .CORP, etc.  Any word that
is short and memorable would be wanted by many parties and it is only
fair that it be a shared gTLD.  I believe there should be 100's even
1000's of new shared gTLDs added to the root.

Note:  There is no technical limitation on the number of TLDs that
can be in the root.  This is demonstrated by:

-There are currently about 200 TLDs. (including the gTLDs, ccTLDs, .EDU,
.GOV, .MIL, and .INT)

-Dr. Postel, in his original proposal in '96, proposed the creation of
150 new gTLDs.  Who is more of an authority on the technical capabilities
than Dr. Postel?

-And most importantly, as I mentioned earlier, currently the root servers
also function as the SLD servers which have literally millions of
domains.  If the root is capable of maintaining millions of SLDs there is
no reason why it couldn't handle millions of TLDs.

9) Adding TLDs

After some time to digest these changes, ICANN should strongly
consider allowing anyone or organization to register there own TLD.  For
example IBM might register .ibm as a TLD it would use for its internal
purposes.  I might register .friedman for myself.  Of course ICANN would
likely want to set policies on this i.e. pricing, and perhaps limiting
the number of TLD registered to an organization.  This proposal should
only be implemented after there are many (1000's?) of shared generic TLDs
in the root.

There is no real reason domain names must be in the second level (SLD) or
higher.  They can be in the first (root) level as well.  One benefit
(certainly not the only) of allowing open registration of TLDs in the
root, would be easier, shorter domain names. (i.e. www.ibm and mike@ibm
instead of ibm.com.)

10) Trademark disputes

It is my strong belief that domains should continue to be assigned on
a first-come first-serve basis, and that ICANN and the registrars should
be prohibited by ICANN policy from refusing to assign a domain, taking
away a domain, or suspending a domain due to alleged or possible
trademark violations.  The only time a domain should be refused or
revoked is with a valid court order from a  court with jurisdiction in
the place of resident or business of the registrant.  (If someone
believes there trademark has been violated by a domain registrant, they
shouldn't be able to drag the registrant to a court in a far away
jurisdiction, nor should they be able to pick 'n choose a friendly
court.)  It is not the business of ICANN or the registrars to determine
who has a valid trademark, in what jurisdiction, for what industry, and
decide if the another party is using a domain in a manner that legally
constitutes a violation of a trademark or whether its considered
fair-use, comical-use, or whether or not the domain is being used in a
manner that confuses consumers with a trademark owner.  There can also be
more than one legitimate holder of a trademark in different jurisdictions
and/or industries that both have a right to the same trademark.  In such
an instance a court would not have any basis to take a domain from one
party.  In short, leave the decisions to a court-of-law.  Let them
arbitrate as they always have and always will.

Sincerely,

Joseph Friedman

---

From: Kelly Talcott <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 11:00:58 -0500

Here's my two cents on the name issue:

Why not honor Dr. Postel by choosing something like the following:

Postel Internet Assigned Numbers Organization (PIANO)
Postel Institute
etc.

Kelly D. Talcott
[email-masked]

>>> "[email-masked]" 11/11 9:53 AM >>>
At 01:32 PM 11/11/98 +0000, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
>Joseph Friedman wrote:
>...
Assigned
>> Names and Numbers (ICANN), should be renamed to the Internet Assigned
Number
>> Authority (IANA).  
>
>This is impossible. IANA is a technical function executed for the IETF, 
>currently by ISI, which the IETF (acting through the IAB) will 
>re-delegate by the end of the year. The name is not available for ICANN 
>as a corporation.

The IETF can't be possibly be re-delegating the technical functions
currently executed by IANA.  The functions will be carried on by the new
organization (ICANN) after the transition.  

And how is it then that Dr. Postel proposed the new organization be named
IANA if that name isn't available?

>...
>
>Regards
>
>   Brian Carpenter
>   Chair, Internet Architecture Board
>

---

From: Kelly Talcott <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 11:00:58 -0500

Kelly D. Talcott
[email-masked]

Assigned
Number

---

From: Steve Bellovin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 11:34:44 -0500

In message <[email-masked]>, Joseph Friedman writes:
> Brian,
> 
> 	Would it not be fair to say that the United States maintains legal cont
> rol
> over the functions carried out by IANA? IANA is a function funded by the
> Department of Defense, a contract between DoD and USC/ISI.  The U.S. is now
> making the decisions regarding ICANNs taking over IANAs functions, not IETF.

IANA took care of three sets of data -- domain names, IP addresses, and
protocol identifiers.  The third was by delegation from the IETF, and
is *not* a concern of the U.S. government.  It is this function that
is being delegated to ISI by the IETF, not the other two.  If you go
back and read the White Paper, you'll see that parameter registration
is explicitly excluded.

---

From: "Christopher Ambler" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 09:20:29 -0800

>> Add as many new gTLDs as possible.  
>
>The technical opinion that the IAB reached a long while back is that
>adding hundreds of TLDs is technically safe, but that adding
>thousands would take us into unknown territory in terms of
>operational scale, and should be avoided in the foreseeable future.

The irony being that there are only a handful of companies that want
to be registries, representing, at most, 30 TLDs.

--
Christopher Ambler

Pardon any delay in replies, please, there is a new baby
in the house that takes priority. Rest assured that email
is being read and replied.

---

From: "Higgs, Simon" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 14:49:59 -0600

> From: Joseph Friedman [[email-masked]]
>
> At 09:20 AM 11/11/98 -0800, Christopher Ambler wrote:
> But there are MANY generic terms that many people want to use 
> as a TLD.

The list of TLD applications to IANA was posted to the iahc-discuss list
by Jon Postel. There were about 150 TLD applications by about 35
companies (the proposal at the time was for each company to serve 3 TLDs
each).

Please show us the documentation for the "thousands" of "generic terms"
that have been submitted as TLD applications.

Simon Higgs

---

From: "Higgs, Simon" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 14:49:59 -0600

Simon Higgs

---

From: "Christopher Ambler" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 13:01:13 -0800

>companies (the proposal at the time was for each company to serve 3 TLDs

To complete the thought, many of those requests were duplicates, and quite a
few were not requests at all, but messages in the form of, "IANA, I would
love to be able to register names in the .whatever TLD, would you create
it so I can do this?"

Of those that were requests for TLD allocations, a majority were from people
or companies who have since abandoned the request, or decided against
actually doing it.

I believe, if a poll were to be taken today of those involved in this
debate, you
would find no more than 15 companies who are interested at this time. Once
new TLDs are being added, I would wager that there would be no more than
50 companies interested in participating. The market will saturate quickly,
and only the serious competitors and those with value to add will remain.
Consolidation will occur quickly (my guess is within 18 months) and there
will be no more than 20 TLD registries left by the turn of the millenium
(which,
I regret that I have to point out, is the year 2001, not 2000).

When you consider that the root servers currently serve .com, which has over
a million entries, there is no question that they could handle 100,000
(one-hundred
thousand) TLDs, much less the 100 new ones I suspect we would have.

All of this information is easily verified, yet many continue to argue about
it. It's
not about technology, it's about politics. Sad commentary, in my opinion.

--
Christopher Ambler
Personal Opinion Only

---

From: "Christopher Ambler" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 13:01:13 -0800

--
Christopher Ambler
Personal Opinion Only

---

From: Joseph Friedman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 16:23:47 -0500

>that have been submitted as TLD applications.

My point was that registrants want to use Many different generic terms.

---

From: Joseph Friedman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 16:23:47 -0500