The Top-level Domain Name Controversy

allows millions of users worldwide to refer to an Internet host by a friendly host name and connect to that computer in a matter of seconds. It is probably the most successful distributed database access mechanism in the history of computing, using the familiar top-level domain and .gov and the two-letter country codes. Jon Postel, who led the design of the DNS, was berated by an attendee representing K-12 networks for assigning .edu exclusively for higher education: " We're educators too, and we deserve to be part of .edu. " Postel explained that .edu volunteer administrators, who handle the naming of sites, simply did not have the time to register many thousands of new school districts. One goal of the .us domain was to distribute such work among the states. Now, just a few years later, Postel finds himself at the vortex of much more vitu-perative arguments. At that same 1993 IETF meeting, the National Science Foundation announced that it had entered into a five-year cooperative agreement with Network Solutions Inc. for NSI to take over responsibility for registering new domains under the TLDs. By 1995, new .com registrations overwhelmed NSI. Companies realized that .com domains could represent much more than company names: For instance, Kraft tried to register all of its food products, and movie companies began registering a new domain under .com for each new release. NSI started charging $100 annually for the first two years and $50 annually thereafter for each .com address. The .com explosion generated millions of dollars in revenue for NSI; others perceived—and resented—NSI's monopoly profits. A rival firm, Alternic, began registering new TLDs, such as .biz. The firm urged people worldwide to point their DNS servers toward Alternic for resolution of new addresses. Now we faced the specter of Internet name-space islands: If a user's Internet Service Provider didn't point to a DNS server honoring a given TLD, the effect would be that of an accidental fire-wall. A balkanized address space would severely limit the Internet's usefulness. Meanwhile, trademark skirmishes arose over second-level domain names. Warner Brothers threatened legal action against a New Mexico ISP for using roadrunner.com even though the ISP had used their home state's bird for years before Warner Brothers became aware of Internet real estate. NSI adopted a policy favoring registered trademark holders over established users of a domain, setting the stage for many David versus Goliath battles. Moreover, …