Gov't 'Net administration plan bombarded days before finalization

By Sandra Gittlen
Network World, 09/25/98

Government plans to reorganize the way Internet domains and IP addresses are meted out continue to come under fire.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) this week blasted plans for an Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) as a threat to free speech and democratic governance of the Internet.

The latest proposal was developed by Network Solutions, Inc., which currently administers domain naming in the U.S., and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

"We believe that the latest IANA/NSI proposal does not follow the requirements set forth by the white paper for protecting openness and free expression," said EFF founder and board member John Gilmore. The white paper, released in June, was the government's recommendation for the privatization of the now-government-contracted Internet administration.

EFF said the NSI/IANA draft:

*Gives the public no say in domain name governance.

*Could lead to arbitrary decisions by the board.

*Incorporates transition agreements that undermine the authority of the new body.

*Does not explain preexisting contracts between the government, NSI and IANA.

The EFF said the draft, if adopted, could leave NSI in complete control of domain naming. For more than a year, the government has said it wants to introduce competition into the field.

IANA attorney Joe Sims agreed that some concerns need to be hammered out if the government is to hit its Sept. 30 deadline.

"People are concerned because they don't know what the agreements that NSI and the government came to are," he said.

Internet Society Chairman Vint Cerf said language in the bylaws that bind the new organization to the are troubling. "You wouldn't normally see that [language] in the bylaws," Cerf said.

But Ira Magaziner, the Clinton administration's top Internet advisor, said he is confident these issues can be resolved before next week, when NSI's contract runs out.

"Something is being set in motion here that will serve the 'Net well for decades," said Magaziner, who has refused all along to get involved in the bickering. Magaziner and NSI and IANA officials have traveled around the world for the past few months, trying to build consensus for their proposal.

By involving parties from other countries, ICANN drafters hope they could avoid problems involving trademarks and domain names on the international network. However, ICANN is charged with developing language that could protect trademark holders by giving them inherent rights to certain domains, Farmer said.

In addition to domain names, ICANN would also take over such tasks as the assignment and creation of IP addresses, ports and top-level domains. It would be responsible for overseeing the world's 13 root servers, which control the registration, updating and mapping of IP addresses.

Another outstanding issue is ICANN funding. More than $46 million collected by NSI for existing domain registrations was supposed to help fund ICANN, but the money is tied up in legal battles over whether those registration fees constitute an "involuntary tax."

"We're not confident that the funds will be made available and we don't want to rely on them," Cerf said. The Global Internet Project, a consortium of several large international corporations such as MCI and IBM, has committed close to $2 million for the corporation's first year of funding. "The GIP decided we should provide some certainty."

Although his name was on the top of several people's list as CEO of the new corporation, Cerf said he is committed to staying with MCI during its merger with WorldCom.

Transparent to users

All this arguing has gone mostly unknown to users, who, according to planning process participants, will see little immediate benefit from the switchover to the private sector.

However, changes could come about within the year that would benefit domain name registrants, according to Pete Farmer, director of optical communications at Strategies Unlimited, a market research firm in Mountain View, Calif.

"Network administrators will be able to plan for new domains and addresses better," said Farmer, who has participated in the proposal planning process. The current process for doling out domains and addresses has been criticized as ad-hoc by some ICANN participants.

"If we do this right, users should not notice right away," said John Curran, chief technology officer at GTE Internetworking in Cambridge, Mass. However, eventually users could notice more choice in registering their domains as new top-level domains are created by the corporation and ISPs and Web companies become registrars. Curran said having more competition could lead to lower prices and more creativity in services surrounding domains.