Saving the Domain Name System : Background Information

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For several years, there has been talk of reforming the domain name system. Proposals have come and gone, a veritable alphabet-soup of organizations has sprung up to add their comments to the morass of debate surrounding the domain name system, and finally the debate is crystalizing in action.

The wrong action.

The latest proposal is carefully worded in convoluted terms, and laced with jargon and acronyms; as such, it is a truly daunting document. After a great deal of wading through the information it contains, I have found it to be fundamentally flawed.

The proposal currently in the process of implementation does nothing to address problems in the existing domain name system, and indeed [as will be made clear later] explicitly disowns responsibility for the existing system.

In brief, the proposal would directly or indirectly lead to:-

• The creation of seven new top level domains; these would coexist with the existing top level domains such as .com, .org and .net
• The delegation of responsibility for the administration of these new top domains to selected organizations -- registrars -- who would be in charge of billing for and registering names under the new top domains.
• A dispute resolution body with defined procedures for handling domain name disputes.
• Stricter rules on registering new domain names.

The proposal has been drawn up on the basis of the document prepared by the now-disbanded IAHC; the IAHC's proposal had been roundly criticized by dozens of organizations and governments, including the US government. The "new" proposal does nothing to address any of these concerns, and the implementation of this proposal would clearly be against the interests of a significant section of the Internet population.

[Slicing through the verbiage : a cold, sharp look at the proposal on the table]