browse comments: comments on 1998/12/23 interim report

comments on 1998/12/23 interim report
Philippe Brieu (philippe@server.astro.UCLA.EDU)
Fri, 12 Mar 1999 11:03:52 -0800

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Rather than commenting on each point raised in the report, I would like to
propose what I think would be the best (though far from ideal) solution for
the four main issues discussed in the report: the administration of the DNS
(a.k.a. the registrars), the choice/ownership of domain names, the resolution
of conflicts, and the changes in top-level domain names (TLDs).

The first thing that one must keep in mind is that the DNS was designed quite
a long time ago, when the people involved had no idea what the Internet would
become today. Back then, it was mainly for a network reserved for education,
research, and technology in the US, with a marginal governmental, commercial,
and foreign presence. Today, of course, this "balance" has been reversed,
so it is no surprise that the present situation is not well served by the
original design ("overcrowding" of .com, and general chaos).

Therefore, an overhaul of TLDs is necessary (and indeed badly needed).

The current ccTLDs should remain and all gTLDs should go, except for one
which would represent the world (e.g., .INT). It makes no (logical) sense
to have 4-year US universities at the same level as a country, or TLDs
that accept any kind of members. Instead, the TLDs should correspond to
some systematic classification--sovereignty in the "real world" being the
obvious one (already in effect). This would destroy the imbalance between
MyCompany.COM and MyCompany.CO.JP for example.

Below those TLDs, should be second level domains (SLDs), similar to the
system currently in use in some countries (e.g., .CO.UK, .AC.UK, etc...).
However, those SLDs should also follow a systematic classification. In
life, one pretty much is either an individual (e.g. Philippe Brieu), an
institution (e.g. UCLA), an association/organization (e.g. WIPO), a
corporation (e.g. Sun Microsystems Inc.), or a government (e.g. the
State of California)--or part thereof. (Have I missed anything?)

These SLDs are the kind of entities that can commit the act of registering
a domain name for themselves in one of the TLDs (i.e. countries) where they
have a presence, and it is important to distinguish their place in society
because they have different (legal and other) rights--not to mention that
it makes it easy to allow the use of similar names in different contexts.

It is imperative that anyone who is given access to the Internet be informed
of the meaning of those TLDs and SLDs, otherwise we get a multitude of
preposterous arguments that you can't use University.COM because ignorant
people might be mislead into thinking this is the same as University.EDU
(the actual University), which ends up making all TLDs no longer disjoint.
Ignorance is not an excuse!

The organization below those two levels is going to be dependent on the
entity (e.g. state or local for government), so it should probably not be
regulated globally, but on TLD-by-TLD (i.e. country-specific) basis.

This is one of the reasons why it would make sense to continue having each
country handle its own TLD as it wants (below the SLDs). Ideally, a single
non-profit entity would run the TLD's DNS. While this may be sufficient for
most countries, several commercial ones could coexist if the market is large
enough (with maybe one for each SLD). But while registration should generate
revenue in all cases, all of the income should go to a fund to support these
operations and Internet expansion in general; no company or individual should
get a part of any profit made on this activity.

In both cases too, country registrars should answer to a worldwide independent
registrar, which could be a specially created UN Internet organization for
example. That organization would also act as the maintainer of the global
DNS database in coordination with each TLD's registrar(s), as well as the
registrar of the international TLD.

One practice that has been the source of most of the (legal) problems with
the DNS is the award of names to the first entity who claimed them. This
should obviously be stopped. Instead, names should be awarded in a similar
fashion to what happens in the "real" world, based on existing rights.

An entity should be awarded a name that corresponds to what is stands for to
a reasonable degree and only after the validity of its claim has been checked.
This would be achieved in the following way.

For individuals, a proof of identity and residence should be given at the
time of the application. The domain name would be First-Middle-Last-#,
based on the legal name "First Middle Last" and with "#" being a number
incremented as requests are received for that name.

For governments, it should be left up to them to decide how they want to
organize their hierarchy, since it will most likely vary with each country.

For the others, a notice should be submitted to the TLD registrar at the
time the entity is founded (or rather, when it applies for legal recognition
by its jurisdiction), along with the domain name it would like to use (which
should match its "real world" name). The registrar would then check that name
(and reasonable variants such as plural or dashes between words instead of
concatenated words, etc...) against its database of all legally registered
entities of that type in that country *in the real world*. If there is no
close match, the name would be awarded. If there is a similarity with an
existing name, a notice would be sent to the owner of that other name asking
them what they want to do in light of this request. Without legal action,
the parties could try to work things out, with the help of the registrar.
For existing names, the date of original registration in the country (which
may be over 100 years old) would determine who can claim the right to use
the given name. When an entity is dissolved, its name would be removed from
the database.

A similar process would occur at the international level if the entity wants
a domain name in the worldwide TLD, with the global registrar of the UN
Internet organization acting as the clearinghouse checking with all national
TLDs.

This would provide a systematic and efficient way of resolving disputes,
because there is no argument possible over who has the rights to a (business)
name, given what is inscribed in birth/commerce/constitutional "registries"
in each country. In other words, cyberspace would be a mirror of the real
world, as opposed to the current chaos due to the fact that the first one
who comes up with a name can use it without being questioned.

It would also prevent domain names such as JustAboutAnythingICanThinkOf.COM
from ever being awarded to anyone unless that is their legal/real name.
For example, no problems like Pentium2.COM because there is no entity
legally recognized as Pentium2.

This brings up the issue of trademarks. I think there should not be domain
names based on trademarks, because a trademark is not an entity that can
register since it does not have a physical existence. However, if the desire
for trademark based domain names is so overwhelming that not allowing them
would impede human evolution, then a SLD such as the existing .TM. (in some
countries) should be devoted to just that. However, under no circumstances
should there be SLDs based on the type of business conducted by the domain
owner because this can change frequently and would be too confusing to
interpret by users. In particular, the idea of tagging adult oriented
businesses with a special TLD is ludicrous, and can only be "explained"
by US puritan power, because who is to say what is objectionable in a
global world?

To summarize my plan:

TLD: one per country, plus one for the whole world
SLD: one for each type of entity
below: dependent on the TLD and/or SLD

registrars: one non-profit one or several commercial ones per TLD, plus one
global maintainer for the whole world; registration not free, but no profit
derived from registration activities

names: entity can only use the name it has legal rights to in the real world
and can be in only one SLD.TLD (except that entities with a presence in all
TLDs can get a name in the international TLD)

disputes: registrars verify legal rights in real world before awarding name
and act as mediators in case of conflicts; if still no agreement, courts in
jurisdictions of parties make final decision

The key elements are: making each domain name level have members on the same
footing and allowing only names that can be justified (to minimize disputes).

I apologize that I cannot afford to produce as many details as there were in
the report, but I can answer any specific questions or expand my plan on
specific points addressed in the report if necessary.

Dr. Philippe P. Brieu http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~philippe/
UCLA, Physics & Astronomy e-mail: philippe@astro.ucla.edu
8370 Mathematical Sciences phone: +1--310-206-8596
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1562 fax: +1--310-206-2096