What follows is a rough draft of Iperdome's response to the U.S. Government's Notice of Inquiry. It is being posted so that your comments can be incorporated before our official submittal is made. Many people, companies, organizations, and Government officials were consulted for their perspectives on these issues. While many ideas were gathered from these stakeholders, none have approved this draft nor the suggestions outlined below. We suspect that few if any of the stakeholders will view the suggestions outlined in this document to be their best alternative. We do believe, however, that these suggestions are the best compromise available given the current situation. Please feel free to post your comments publically, or if you prefer, you may send you comments privately. If they are sent privately, we will honor your confidentiality, however, we may incorporate your suggestions in our final position paper. ================== Domain Name Compromise Background Contrary to appearances, the Domain Name Crisis is *not* about domain names. It is about control. It's about how the Internet will look 20 years from now, and who will make those decisions. The immediate challenge facing all Internet stakeholders is how to deal with the IAHC proposal. It is the result of a process initiated by the IANA, and orchestrated by the ISOC, ITU and WIPO. While we don't necessarily oppose these four groups' involvement in Global Internet Governance, we do oppose their unilaterally deciding to take over this governance, especially when it was done behind closed doors, without legitimate authority, and counter to Internet traditions. Other problems with the gTLD-MoU are: * It ignores the vast majority of Internet stakeholders who have not been and will not be represented under the proposed governance structure. * It creates a highly controlled, bureaucratically administered name space, instead of a free market approach that has fueled much of the Internet's world wide growth. * It attempts to implement new global Trademark and IP policies, without any authority delegated by the sovereign nations that are being asked to acquiesce to these policies. If the gTLD-MoU is accepted as the authority to determine what is and what is not appropriate for the name space, it will establish the first and only politically authoritative body for the Internet that is trans-national in influence. Given the current power vacuum, it is very likely that whatever precedent is set for domain names will apply to other topics as well. Global Internet Governance is much too important to leave to the IANA, ISOC, ITU, and WIPO alone, no matter how honorable their intentions are. Iperdome's Approach Iperdome believes that the gTLD-MoU is the wrong solution for Global Internet Governance (GIG), and the wrong solution for the Domain Name Crisis. It is our opinion that GIG must be postponed until the Internet has had a little time to mature, and all Internet stakeholders have had an opportunity to participate in the process that will profoundly affect them for many years to come. By the same token, the Domain Name Crisis must be addressed quickly. Many companies have been harmed by the anti-competitive state that currently exists (i.e. PG Media, IO Designs, and other pending lawsuits), and the NSF has indicated that they are canceling their cooperative agreement with NSI when it expires in March of 1998. Iperdome believes that the best compromise will result if we separate the problem into its two separate components (GIG <===> fixing the Domain Name Space). Then we can find a temporary solution to the latter, while diverse groups of Internet stakeholders formalize a solution to the former, and larger issue. Goals As a point of reference, we have used the following goals to help us determine what is in the best interest of the Internet and the Internet Community. * To keep the Internet open to free and fair competition. * To limit regulation to the absolute minimum required to provide stability and fair play. * To honor the spirit and character that has made the Internet a world wide phenomenon. Iperdome's Proposal In light of our stated goals, we believe that the following proposal is the best compromise currently available: "Move .com, .org, .net, .edu, .gov, and .mil under .us" When the DNS was established, the Internet was primarily a U.S. phenomena. The TLDs that were established were primarily for the U.S. name space. As the Internet went global, however, these same TLDs became artificially valuable because they were the only ones that did not have a two digit country code suffix. Although still primarily U.S. based, their existence resulted in global addressing and Trademark issues. This historical legacy has biased the potential solutions to the artificial problems that were introduced because U.S. TLDs did not require the .us suffix. Rather than rush the implementation of Global Internet Governance to address these artificial problems with global addressing and Trademark issues, it makes more sense to fix the name space before we grow the name space. That means that .com, .org, .net, etc. should become .com.us, .org.us, .net.us, etc. The resulting universal domain name space would then consist of all two character ISO country codes, .int, and .arpa (a historical reverse mapped TLD). Advantages Some of the advantages to this proposal are as follow: * Postpones GIG until Internet matures and consensus can be reached. * Allows each country to administer its own domain name space, using the historical laws and traditions of their respective countries (i.e. Italy has decided that domain names and trademarks are two separate and independent issues). * Allows U.S. IP, Trademark, and anti-trust Laws to redress existing grievances under the former .com, .org, etc. TLDs. ============================ Iperdome has prepared a much more extensive analysis of the advantages and challenges that this proposal entails. We will be posting it shortly. Regards, Jay Fenello President, Iperdome, Inc. 404-250-3242 http://www.iperdome.com