Tony,
It seems odd to me that architecture would have the consumer--the would-be
domain name holder--shop registrars for domain name dispute policies and
whois data representation. After all, I'd imagine that the point of a
dispute policy is to balance the interests of the holder and other later
claimants both substantively and procedurally. Suppose in a world of
varying policies a registrar offers the following simple one: we hand out
names first-come first-served no matter what. The consumer who anticipates
any question of her right to hold the sought-after name would go with that
registrar, and a disputant would be left with no policy at all. Similarly,
whois data seems as usable to me by those inquiring who holds a domain as
by the holder herself.
I'm not feeling a fan of strict dispute resolution policies--I don't like
the idea of domain name registrants forced to park whatever traditional
legal rights they may have for a cookie-cutter arbitration simply to
acquire a name--but I can see how they only work if they're uniform across
a registry.
While I'm using a message slot: do you know what the basis is for the idea
of "renting" domain names at the registry level instead of owning them,
which is to say having to pay an ongoing fee every year or two to simply
keep a previously-acquired name? On a cost-recovery registry I'd figure it
would either be (1) pay up front and get the name indefinitely or (2) get
the name and pay again transactionally as you seek to make changes to the
DNS servers to which it points (i.e. recovering for the de minimus costs of
registry database changes).
(Whose shill crapola was to be inserted below, btw?) ...JZ
At 05:16 PM 6/26/99 , Tony Rutkowski wrote:
>
>>This "thin registry" model causes a lot of problems. It is a departure from
>>all other models where registry and registries are separated (e.g., .UK,
>>.DE, .FR etc.), and it will cause tremendous confusion. Whois and dispute
>>resolution are two things that should be done at the registry level.
>
>Antony,
>
>Frankly, as a consumer, I don't particularly want
>uniform anything...I want choice that is brought
>about by my registrar being able establish its own
>policies, practices, whois systems, whatever.
>The only thing that must be uniform is what exists
>in the thin registry model - the information that
>goes into the zone file and a pointer.
>
>[insert shill crapola here in reply]
>
>
>--tony
Jon Zittrain
Executive Director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
