--- Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 22:37:17 -0400 From: Michael Sondow <msondowat_private> Subject: Privatization of .us: The DoC's Request For Quotations On June 11th, the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) will issue a Solicitation/Request For Quotations (1) for a proposal to operate a registry for .us, the United States country-code top level domain. For three years the DoC has conducted a public inquiry into the reorganization of .us and has decided to put it up for bids, as if it were a commodity, rather than create a public agency for its operation. The deadline for submission of proposals is July 26, 2001; that is, less than five weeks from now. Formerly run by Jon Postel at ISI (U.S.C.), the .us registry is currently run by Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI), a division of Verisign. NSI has done a very poor job. It has become difficult if not impossible to make new registrations and data changes like nameserver updates. For-profit companies like NSI, whose major revenue comes from servicing commercial TLDs or selling commercial domain names, have little incentive to spend time and money on free services, and they have no interest in developing .us to compete with their commercial TLDs. The notice of the DoC's solicitation states that the chosen registry operator will not be permitted to act as a registrar for .us. How, then, will it pay for its operations? Two methods present themselves: 1) charge for the delegation and servicing of subdomains in .us; 2) create new second-level domains like .com.us and contract out registration services for these, either keeping the legacy locality-based domains (including the 3LDs run by the subdelegation managers) free of charge, or eliminating them altogether. A number of commercial for-profit companies will be making proposals. Two of these are Registrars.com and usTLD.org (us-register.com). The first - Registrars.com - is a division of a large networking corporation named Network Commerce, Inc. This company has stated to a .us locality manager that the company proposes to maintain the present structure of the TLD as well as the present locality managers without charge as a service to the community. Whether they would actually do so once they were operating .us and its new commercial SLDs is anyone's guess. However, Network Commerce, Inc. appears to be on the verge of bankruptcy (June 7 share price of 14 cents!), and is the defendant in a class action lawsuit by shareholders (2). Even if the company manages to survive and wins the .us registry, they are in no position to expend time, effort, and resources on unprofitable operations like the present locality-based .us delegations. The second company, usTLD.org (us-register.com), is an ISP that hopes to profit from commercialization of domain names under the locality-based structure of .us without creating new SLDs, and has promised not to charge the locality managers for their delegations and perhaps even pay them a kick-back for registrations. Here is what usTLD.org's CEO wrote to disgruntled subdelegation managers who thought that usTLD.org planned to charge them fees: "I am sorry if you guys got the impression that usTLD was going to start charging YOU for the services that YOU are providing! On the contrary we intend to see that you get PAID for your work. The parties paying for these services will be the Registrars who are selling the domains for a profit". This is not very good news for the public entites you service. But it is probably unlikely, in any case, that the DoC will accept a proposal that does not provide for the exploitation of SLDs under .us, since almost all comments received during the public inquiry suggested that this be done, on the grounds that only shortened domain names would be popular and commercially viable and save .us from oblivion. There are sure to be other proposals submitted to the Dept. of Commerce, including one from Verisign or some corporation created by Verisign and its allies the ICANN-accredited .com registrars. These other proposals will most likely propose one of the above schemes, or a combination of them. There is, however, an alternative to commercial schemes for making .us profitable, and that is to run the registry as a non-profit corporation. This has been done in a number of countries for their ccTLD, for example Canada (3). The non-profit concept is the motivation behind this post. Briefly, the non-profit concept has the following key points: 1) The .us registry would be run in accordance with policies established by a newly-created national association having a membership composed of delegation managers and the registrants they serve. 2) All functions of this association, including the election of its board of directors, would be conducted by democratic methods. 3) The registry operation would have two parts: one for the maintainance of the present locality-based system, the other for the commercial exploitation of new second-level domains in .us such as .com.us, .net.us, .lab.us, .nyc.us, etc. 4) The proceeds from the commercial exploitation of these new subdomains, together with membership fees and dues and funding from grant agencies, would be used to pay for maintainance of the legacy delegation system and the operation of the association. This non-profit concept has already been discussed on mailing lists of delegation managers and non-profit entites interested in keeping .us in the public interest, and is supported by many. A proposal elaborating this concept, in response to the DoC's solicitation, is in the process of being written. If you are in agreement that .us in its present form should be maintained and that it should remain a public service, and if you believe that the delegation managers and the users of .us should take responsibility for ensuring that this happen, you can help by discussing it with the registrants you service and, together with them, offering your help and your support to this effort. Please keep in mind that the time is short. Michael Sondow (ICIIU) In defense of the public interest in the Internet domain name system. Notes: 1. http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/usrfp/cbd52501.txt 2. http://biz.yahoo.com/pz/010607/17658.html 3. http://www.cira.ca ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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