From: Douglas Seay <douglas.seay@capgemini.fr>
To: NTIA.NTIAHQ(usdomain)
Date: 8/24/98 10:52am
Subject: A few thoughts about changing the US domain (RFC 1480)
My opinion is that this change (if it happens) should have as
little impact on the existing system as possible. My limited
experience with the cary.nc.us domain has been good. It works
and has done so for a while.
I think the goal here should be to move as many of the US based
international names under the .us domain structure as possible.
Namely the GOV, MIL, and EDU TLDs should be removed. They should
be moved down into the us domain without change. North Carolina
State University should change from ncsu.edu to ncsu.edu.us.
Perhaps merging the "gov" and "fed" when possible, but I imagine
that there is at least one conflict somewhere, so this may not be
do-able.
I personally think the us domain should be divide into
- 2 letters for states (nc.us, va.us)
- 3 letters for national structures (edu.us, fed.us)
One letter names are clearly too short. Four letter and longer
names should be reserved for future use. Perhaps for industry
specific domains like porn.us and bank.us, but I doubt if they
will be useful. com.us would cover them. A survey is needed to
find out if that is useful.
Another idea is to reserve 4 and let 5+ be used for vanity
domains, like toys-r.us or biggest-bank-in-the.us and so on.
Many countries use 2 letter codes for national level thingies
(co.uk for Brittish companies), but I don't see a compelling
reason for the US to adopt this. co.us is already Colorado, and
so it should stay. com.us is good enough, and is closer to what
we are used to.
I would like for the system to be pay-to-play for companies, and
free for the general public. Anything in a com domain (com.us,
com.nc.us) should be "expensive". Things in other domains should
be free. How do you make the distinction? Good guestion. Not
too many companies want to be company.cary.nc.us as that is too
long, but that doesn't enforce much. Public opinion of only
"com" addresses are good might do something, but I doubt it.
This is the big weakness of my idea. I hope that someone else
has proposed a workable solution to this.
Another big question dealing with this is how do you ensure
jurisdiction? If cary.nc.us charges less thatn apex.nc.us, then
what happens if someone (or company) from Apex registers himself
under cary.nc.us? I don't think that this is a big deal. It
surely isn't worth the time and effort to verify this.
Who are the registrars? I think that the existing registrars
should continue to run the existing domains as long as they wish
to do so. They should not be put under pressure to change or
quit. Public interest domains (k12, etc) should be free and run
as a "mandatory comunity service" by the owner of the controlling
domain. That is the price of doing business. Un-controlled
domains (including new ones like com.nc.us and com.us) should be
put up for sale. Let the market decide who gets what. The
winner of com.us may get the responsibility for mil.us, edu.us
and so on too. This domain is the big win. Who gets the money?
I think it should be split evenly between the US Government, the
state government (if any, US Gov if not) and the owner of the
higher level domain. This means that the money for com.nc.us is
split between the owner of nc.us, the NC State Government and the
US Federal Goverment, while the money for com.us is split 1/3 to
ISI and 2/3 US Gov. Which part of the US Government gets the
money? Good questions. I don't know. FCC, USPS, whatever.
The main part of RFC 1480 that needs to change is
> There are no current plans of putting all of the organizational
> domains EDU, GOV, COM, etc., under US. These name tokens are not
> used in the US Domain to avoid confusion.
I like the goal of avoiding confusion, but that should be handled
by removing the TLDs. Only com would exist in both.
> 1.How should the present geographic structure of .us be extended or modified? What changes should be made in RFC 1480 or the posted policies
> for .us?
I described that above. I like the existing system.
> 2.What are the benefits and costs of different options for allocating second-level domains under .us? How should the allocation of such second-level
> domains be decided and administered? What should be the terms of delegation?
Auction for "interesting sub domains" (com), and mandatory
support for public interest ones like K12 (it comes with the
package). These auctions should give exlusive rights for a fixed
period of time (3-5 years) and should include failure-to-perform
penalties. Non obvious ones (cary.nc.us) should be auction if
possible. If no one pays for it, is "given away" to voluneteers
provide the service. These freebie domains CANNOT CHARGE for
services. They got the domain for free, they cannot charge for
it. A bid of $5 would achieve the same results, but at least
there is the chance that someone out-bids that. Plus that
requires re-auctioning every few years.
> 3.Specifically, should special-purpose second-level domains be created under .us? What are the benefits and costs of creating particular
> special-purpose domains (e.g., industry-specific, credentialing, zoning)? How should such domains be created and administered? Are there
> reasons to map names and other addressing and identification systems (e.g., postal addresses, telephone numbers, longitude and latitude, uniform
> resource numbers or others) into .us?
I think a study of industry specific domain names, such as
porn.us, bank.us, jobs.us and so on should be made, but I doubt
if they will be useful. Most companies will just flock to the
com.us domain. The rest would fill too slowly to be useful.
Postal addresses, telephone numbers, ZIP codes, long/lat
co-ordinates, and so on are a dumb idea. People are fairly
mobile, so this isn't such a good idea. Also, at a fundament
level, what does it buy us? Maybe reserve zip.us, tel.us and so
on for future use, but I doubt if they will ever be big hits.
> 4.Alternatively, should .us be treated as an unrestricted top-level domain like .com or should one or more specific second-level domains such as
> .co.us or .com.us be used for unrestricted assignment of domain names (as in .com)? How should such unrestricted domains be administered and
> by whom?
The .us domain should be restricticed. It should be in a
straight-jacket. Inflexible is the word. I describe my views
for how to partition it above. How should new groups be
decidied? Something like a CFV from usenet. This seems to
prevent the worst of multiple voters. Public discourse works
best.
> 5.How should conflicting proposals and claims to manage or use .us subdomains be resolved? Who should have responsibility for coordinating
> policy for .us over the long term? What public oversight, if any, should be provided?
I'm not sure that goverment oversight means that much. Don't
worry about that. I think that the domain names give implicit
jurisdiction. com.us has disputes in Federal court, while
cary.nc.us treats its problems in Wake County. The standard laws
of jursidiction apply, so NC laws apply to cary.nc.us too. Note
that I don't think the governemnt has any authority here, just
that decideds which court system is used. If the Cary City
Council wants to close slutty-babes.cary.nc.us for having an
offending name, then they would need to use Wake County Court to
sue (I would hope that they lose, but that is a different issue).
> 6.What rules and procedures should be used to minimize conflicts between trademarks and domain names under .us? Should this problem be
> treated differently at international, national, state, and local levels? Should special privileges be accorded to famous trademarks, such as a right to
> register directly under .us or a procedure to preempt the use of the trademark in a range of subdomains?
First-come, first-servered.
Let the courts handle abuses like
IBM-sucks.com.us
under existing law. The problem would be something like
bob-smith.cary.nc.us
and a second Bob Smith moves to town and demands the same
domain. Tough luck.
> 7.What role should states play in the allocation and registration of their respective subdomains? Should commercial names be permitted under states
> as third-level domains? Or should such third-level domains be limited to special categories such as domestic corporations or other state-licensed
> entities? Should states and localities operate registries and accept registrations directly? To what extent should state policies be coordinated and
> through what mechanisms and procedures?
I think that all for-profit companies should be in a com domain,
either com.us or com.nc.us. Localities (cary.nc.us) should allow
companies, they already exist and that should not change,
although they might have to start paying.
> 8.How well has the system of delegating third-level domains (localities) to private registrars on an exclusive basis worked? How could it be
> improved? Should registrars be accountable to their delegated localities (just as country-code registries are accountable to national governments)?
> Should registrars be limited to a single jurisdiction? Should multiple competing registrars be able to register under any local, state, or
> special-purpose domain under .us as in the plan proposed for generic Top-Level Domains?
I don't see much of a reason to change things. Domain names
should not be accountable to anyone in a classic sense.
Goverments (municipal, local, state, federal) can pass all the
laws they want, but the courts need to decide.
> 9.How should the operation of the .us registry be supported? Should uniform registration (and renewal) fees be instituted? Should registrars
> contribute to the operation of the registry?
No.
Let each registrar set her own rates. com.us, com.ca.us,
com.ny.us and a few others will be big targets, the rest will be
yawners. If the fees to com.us are set (part of the contract for
the com.us domain), the rest will fall in line.
Renewal fees are a given. I've got nothing against yearly flat
rates that are currently charged. Of course, I think that the
smaller one should be free.
I would imagine that com.us would charge $50/yr like InterNIC
charges for com today, and the newly international com TLD should
see a huge price hike ($500/yr, $1000/yr, whatever).
I don't think that names are property of the owners. They have
exclusive right to use it, but they should be non-transferable.
I should not have the right to get ibm.nc.us and try to sell it
IBM. It isn't mine to sell, just mine to use.
> 10.What are best management and allocation practices for country-code domains? What practices should be emulated or avoided?
Over-regulation is bad. The free-for-all system has worked for
me up to now. I don't see a reason to change things much.
Cleaning up the international TLDs (COM, EDU, MIL, GOV, etc) is
the only reason for doing this.
> 11.By what type of entity should .us be administered? Private, governmental, or quasi-governmental? For profit or not-for-profit? What are the
> advantages and disadvantages of using one type of entity (private, public, for profit, not-for-profit) over the others?
We live in a pay-to-play world. I see for-profit companies
competing here for the prize domains and the rest being run as
freebies.
- doug
###
From: ray teng <teng@nsrl.rochester.edu>
To: NTIA.NTIAHQ(usdomain)
Date: 8/24/98 4:30pm
Subject: domain name
Hi, just a brief though on the subject of domain names.
At present, I can look at the last three letters and make a good guess
as to the origin of the business, BUT for adult sites which are
everywhere. On this subject why cannot an ".adult" domain name be used?
This would help programs to screen out unwanted material by looking at
the last letters in a URL and if you see ".adult" you cannot go there.
The adult "industry" would avoid possible "regulation" of their sites,
if they keep their web pages at this URL. This way WE WOULD ALL know
that if you go to a site with a URL that has ".adult", you can expect to
see adult material!
On the subject of using the .us domain, I do not see what this would
achieve. Are we running out of domain names? It would only lead to more
confusion as to what ".us" means. It would make more sense if domain
names used reflect the businesses. If we remove some of the adult sites
and placed them under the ".adult" name, would this create or make more
room for other sites?
Thanks you for your time and trouble, Ray Teng
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From: New User <nobody@email.usps.gov>
To: NTIA.NTIAHQ(usdomain)
Date: 8/24/98 9:32am
Subject: domain use
attachment is in Word 7.0. This is from mbarlow784@aol.com
I would like to comment on the use of the .us domain. I believe it should be used to give every american citizen an e-mail address. This should be done by linking their address (mine would be 635edgewooddrgbwi) This way the domain remains free and accessible to everyone, and can be used by commercial interests as well. (spam should not be allowed in this domain, however).
Thanks for your time
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