COMPUTERGRAM INTERNATIONAL: OCTOBER 16 2000
* Who Owns .Web? - More Controversy at ICANN
By Kevin Murphy
Afilias LLC, the consortium of 19 of the top domain name
registrars currently fighting for the chance to operate a new
top-level domain registry, has come under fire for attempting
to hijack the ".web" TLD from a company that has been using it
for four years.
The publication Friday of the 47 applications for new top-level
internet domains by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers, sparked renewed debate over the
legitimacy of Image Online Design Inc's claim to .web, which it
has been running as an alternative to .com since 1996.
Afilias, which counts former monopoly registrar Network
Solutions Inc, Register.com Inc and the Council of Registrars
(CORE) among its members, applied to run a registry of either
.web, .site or .info. While some consortium members have
expressed to ComputerWire that the string it wishes to use is
relatively unimportant, market research conducted by Afilias
suggests .web is the preferred alternative to .com among
potential registrants.
This is where IOD has the problem. The San Luis Obispo,
California-based firm has been operating a .web TLD outside of
the authoritative root system operated by NSI for four years,
and reckons its popularity is mostly due to its efforts at
webtld.com. Now that it has been given a chance by ICANN to
apply to have .web accepted into the root, it too has paid its
$50,000 non-refundable fee and submitted its proposal to the
organization. Seeing two other proposals for .web submitted,
the company was concerned that others were trying to steal its
thunder.
"[Afilias's identity] came as quite a surprise," said IOD
president and CTO Christopher Ambler. "We thought it would be a
newcomer that didn't know our history." Afilias's members,
particularly NSI and CORE, know precisely what IOD has been
doing with .web to date. "This is a blatant attempt to take
over four years of our work," he complains.
The history of IOD's claim to .web is as controversial as the
evolution of ICANN and the domain name system itself. Ambler
claims the late Jon Postel, director of IANA (Internet Assigned
Numbers Authority) and one of the people largely credited with
forming ICANN itself, promised to allow .web into the
authoritative DNS in 1996.
IOD ended up suing IANA in 1997, over the proposed signed of a
memorandum of understanding that would have assigned .web to
another registry, but dropped the suit after the US
government's green and white papers that scrapped the MoU and
ultimately led to the formation of ICANN.
The company also sued CORE and PGMedia Inc (now Name.Space Inc)
last year over their use of .web in alternative registries. IOD
lost, and the case is currently on appeal. The judgment appears
to preclude any registry having property or trademark rights on
a TLD, which makes IOD's current complaints legally shaky at
best.
But this isn't about legality, says Ambler, it's about
"fairness, openness and honesty" - virtues ICANN is supposed to
be founded upon. From what we gather, ICANN's position is that
the authoritative DNS also has no time for proprietary claims
on TLDs. It is unlikely, for example, that NSI/VeriSign could
claim any rights to .com.
And there is no guarantee that Afilias is even in with a shout
of running a new TLD. ICANN is expected to pick a handful of
new TLDs, and Afilias is but one of 47 applications for TLDs
ranging from .shop to .dubai. As well as IOD and Afilias,
Washington DC- based NeuStar Inc wants to run .web.
It seems NSI's involvement in Afilias is also causing
controversy among some of the domain name community's more
'active' participants. A "parody" web site at Afilias.tv has
already appeared, which publicizes IOD's situation, as well as
accusing the consortium of acting as a smokescreen for NSI,
which is accused of trying to extend its monopoly on generic
TLD registries.
In its defense, it is the NSI registrar business that is
involved in Afilias. The registry, which is now named VeriSign
Global Registry Services in light of the purchase of NSI by
VeriSign Inc earlier this year, has no official part to play.
The consortium also said it will outsource the technical
management of the registry to Canadian registrar Tucows Inc,
rather than use the VeriSign GRS .com registry. But, as Ambler
points out, the NSI registrar and registry are owned by the
same company, so it is reasonable to see the mutual benefit a
new TLD registry would bring.
Representatives of New York-based Afilias, which is 5.25% owned
by each of its participants, were not available for comment by
press time.
............................................................
Michael Sondow
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Concerns about rights and ownership of domains are
inappropriate. It is appropriate to be concerned
about responsibilities and service to the community.
----- Jon Postel, 1994.
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International Congress of Independent Internet Users (ICIIU)
http://www.iciiu.org [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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