On Tue, 13 March 2001, "Steven M. Bellovin" wrote:
Put simply, deploying multiple public DNS roots would raise a very strong possibility that users of different ISPs who click on the same link on a web page could end up at different destinations, against the will of the web page designers.
Its not really the "will of the web page designers." If this becomes popular, I suspect most web page designers will start using dotted-quad addresses inside their HTML URLs on their web pages. So clicking on a link on a web page will go to were the web page designer directs you. Except for NAT strangeness, IP Address are mostly globally unique. The issue is really one of user expectations. Some class of users have developed the expectation if they type some words resembling what they are looking for in the "address" prompt of their web browser, they will get taken to someplace they want. Web browser companies (e.g. Netscape, Microsoft) have reinforced this perception by automagically transforming the user's input into something else. Type "white house" into Internet Explorer 5.5's address prompt, and watch what happens. Netscape's browser has transformed any single word "XXXXXX" into http://www.XXXXXXX.com/ for a while.