Slashdot Mirror
New DNS Agreement Announcement
gumbo writes "The Commerce Department, ICANN, and NSI have announced their
domain name agreements. " Well, of course, it's written in PR-ese, but AFAIK, it looks as if said parties have resolved their differences, and perhaps will start to some progress take place on the DNS front. Given the recent...disagreements and legal disputes this is a fairly sizeable shift.Interesting note - check out the (re)-opening of WHOIS.
Contrary to what you and everyone else seem to think, NSI is most certainly *NOT* in charge of the whole world. The problem, of course, is that everyone is so fixated on TLD's. The whole problem is the fact that the .com, .org, .net TLD's even EXIST! Stick to the country domains. That would have made things easier. There are PLENTY of domains for you to register.
You know, it occurred to me that the NSI domain agreement calls for all information in the agreement to be 'truthful' and that if the agreement is violated, NSI can revoke the domain.' I shure wish they would follow up on this and remove EVERY SINGLE domain where people put FICTITIOUS names and businesses on their domains. Take away all the .net's that don't belong to network providers. Take away the .org's from commercial entities.
If you can't say "fuck", you can't say "fuck the government". --Lenny Bruce
s/the government/NSI/ 8)
Joker (www.joker.com) sells com/net/org domains for $40 for two years. They register with CORE too, so your info won't be "owned" by NSI.
Expecting spam, I created a free e-mail address specifically for the registration; But I've had the domain for a month now and haven't gotten a single spam to that account. Aparantly spammers don't hit up CORE (as much?) as they do NSI.
Check out www.fucker.com.
Amazing.
.com's should be abolished.
By this same argument, ALL
Logic: if you're outside the US, use the country code instead. Okay. Why not force US companies to use the same practice?
Simple. Registration headaches. coca-cola.*, pepsi.*, nike.*, intel.*, ibm.*, etc.
As if the DNS tables weren't getting any LARGER.
Freaking Americans. You'd figgured they'd would have shot each other to death by now.
Actually, no. .COM, .NET, .ORG, .EDU, .MIL and .GOV are TLD's created for use by US organizations. The registry has always been operated on behalf of the US government.
Country-code TLD's were created for control by other countries. That we choose to flock to the US TLD's is our problem, not their's. All NSI's authority, and ICANN's for that matter, comes from the US government. I guess we can either live with that or go off and build our own Internet.
This is all fine and good, but with the original announcements of domain name sales competion, came promises of cheaper domains and better service. That we have better service might be argued, but where are the bargain basement domain name prices?
So if NSI has a problem with the "seven words" (which they do) all registries have to suffer?
Well, if I'm reading the WHOIS DATA section from this document right, we're all due for much spam because the database can be sold in it's entirety. Nothing blocks us from gettng spam in the form of mail or telemarketers, and I'd expect email too (regaurdless of paragraph #1 below).
It's a good thing I didn't update the current address when my company moved!
------------------------------------
WHOIS Data
>Someone has to administer the tlds. Might as well be the people who have the experience.
Did IQs suddenly drop around here?
What makes you think that there are no qualified administrators in countries outside of the good, ol' U$A?
While we are at it, why should I (a business owner outside of the US) send my money to a US business that could easily be adminstered here.
Work with me here: No taxation without representation. The NSI TLD registration fee is a defacto Net tax.
Some people's children.
And if you have many TLDs, people will probably have trouble remembering (and distinguishing) them anyway. Should I go to Company.Biz or Company.Corp?
---
Spammed? Click here for free slack on how to fight it!
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Nope, no problem. NSI is a commercial entity. Fair enough. ICANN is a nonprofit, advised in these matters by its Domain Name Supporting Organisation, made up of representatives of these groups.
The intention here is that ICANN plays the role of arbitrator. Much effort has gone into ensuring that ICANN is properly transparent and properly representative of the community on these matters.
Personally, I preferred it when Jon Postel ran the entire internet, but after countless green papers, white papers, and input from many, many interested parties, ICANN is set up to do a decent job of achieving consensus.
Dave
[My opinions, not necessarily those of my employer]
--
That's an entirely legitimate concern and I dare say (from my uninformed viewpoint) that it was one of the main bones of contention that made this compromise so hard to reach.
In the short term, the summar y fact sheet says that:
Hopefully this will be enough. It's not easy. NSI has the database and has been claiming for some time now that it owns it, period. It looks like ICANN has successfully coaxed them down from this position and is moving in the right direction.
Slowly, yes. But the right direction is unbelievably important. A head on clash between ICANN and NSI would drag in the root server operators, major ISPs, minor ISPs, every administrators' root.hints files, and - eventually - governments. One would not be able to ensure that legitimate domains would resolve. It would be ugly and disruptive, and would do the internet zero good. And worst of all, the eventual outcome is almost certain not to be the best one. Thank whatever powers you believe in that we've got compromise here, folks.
In the long term:
This gives NSI the carrot of an extended period as registrar if the separation of registry and registrar proceeds speedily. Again, a good one. It's been mentioned elsewhere on this forum that NSI at least has experience in running the root zone. I don't mind them leaving longer between reviews if that major bone of contention - separation of registry and registrar - is removed.
Dave
[As usual, my opinions, not necessarily those of my employer. And worse, they're based on a cursory reading of the agreement, and some pretty shaky opinions on the nature of the root...]
--
Depends on how you look at it. Which two parties are you worried about here? If it's NSI and some other registry - indeed, any two registries, then the group with the power to enforce its rulings is undoubtedly the group that allocated registry status in the first place - IANA or, these days, its successor.
If NSI (or anyone else) is arguing with the very people who ostensibly hold that authority, and is thus challenging that authority, well that's ugly, and doesn't have a simple answer.
Nay, nay and thrice nay. There remains one central database and, just like all the other zones in the world, one primary root server. Type dig . soa on a UNIX machine and you'll see from the SOA that the primary name server is A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET, run by - surprise - NSI.
The multiple root servers referred to in the document are, by my understanding, the ordinary secondary name servers for the root domain. DNS is neat like that, it allows you to spread the load for efficient bandwidth use, or CPU use, or reliability, or all three.
Same for the .COM, .NET and .ORG servers. Every domain registered in these TLDs must go through the operators of A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. This is what the $9 charge is for. It is rather unfortunate that the operators of the primary server are themselves registering .COM domains, but there weren't no easy way out of that one, 'cos NSI was never gonna give up all its hard work (and revenue stream) that easily.
Dave
[My opinions, not necessarily those of my employer]
--
IMHO, the post office was created for the physical world.. Something simular should be created for the electronic..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
I'm confused by this section in particular:
3.A.i) NSI agrees that it will operate the registry for the Registry TLDs in accordance with this Agreement;
WHY keep NSI as the Registry? It's obviouse that they only want to attempt to find loopholes in the future to make money off of what they consider to me 'Proprietary data'. Granted, this section:
10. Rights in Data. Except as permitted by the Registrar License and Agreement, NSI shall not be entitled to claim any intellectual property rights in data in the registry supplied by or through registrars other than NSI. In the event that Registry Data is released from escrow under Section 7 or transferred to a Successor Registry under Section 22(D), any rights held by NSI as registry in the data shall automatically be licensed on a non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free, paid-up basis to the recipient of the data.
KINDA deals with the issue.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
--
--
--
Yes, there is. Go here, http://www.corenic.org/, for a list of registrars.
Doug Loss
I agree. The country domains are the most appropriate way to do DNS. Net should be reserved for Providers and public networks. Org should be reserved for non-profit organizations. Com should be split into sections on what a business provides. It really would be a lot easier and would allow for name reuse in different sections.
.net, .org, and .com would be better split into several chunks.
I know that people don't like typing in long urls, but if they are organized in a nice coherent fashion, then it really would be easier.
In fact, all of the TLDs of
Also, is ICANN not trying to delegate DNS? From what I see, they want to let NSI get away with whatever they want. NSI still controls much of the system as stated by the documents released today. ICANN should be doing the managment. Only then will registrars be truly free to compete for prices on names.
However in the fact sheet, we find the following:
(SNIP!)
WHOIS Data
All accredited registrars would be obligated to provide query-based access to registration data and would be barred from placing conditions upon any legal use of that data, except to prohibit use of the data to enable the transmission of mass unsolicited commercial solicitations via e-mail (spam) and to enable high-speed processes for applying for registrations.
(SNIP!)
So, it is perfectly legal to use WHOIS information for any use, except for registrations and SPAM. Take THAT, NSI!
However, this is immediatly followed by:
(SNIP!)
All accredited registrars also would be required to provide third-party bulk access to registration data (subject to the restrictions discussed above) for an annual fee that may not exceed $10,000. This obligation would remain in effect until it is replaced by a different policy adopted by ICANN or a finding by the Department of Commerce that no individual or entity is able to exercise market power with respect to data used for development of third-party value added products and services.
(SNIP!)
Spam(ers) suck(s)....
Second problem - you're maintaining multiple independent databases. Anybody who's used SQL for more than 10 minutes knows that this is a HUGE data integrity issue. Widget Enterprises decides to register widget.com, so they call up NSI and get the order put in. Meantime Funky Foobar registers widget.com with Fabulous Registration Services. Who wins? There's no way to guarantee this situation won't occur under this system - and even if there was - these organizations have no incentives to share their customers "with the enemy" to prevent it!
I find myself arguing against my better judgement on this one, but I can't see how the current system can support multiple root servers - they'll be constantly out of sync with the others! The solution is, of course, to have only one entity in charge of the database, or divide it up in an organized fashion (Internic gets registrations A-D, Frank Foobar gets E-M, etc).
However, one thing I think we can universally agree on here is that Internic should not be this entity! They're a bloated, insensitive, beaurocratic, and downright stubborn organization. Completely the opposite of what we need to make the root servers function reliably. I wish we could just hold an election and eject them from the DNS Whitehouse by popular vote. :\
--
It still seems to be worth their while to drag their feet and do everything they can to keep their customers. Even if what they do doesn't benefit their customers. Like slapping copyright notices all over the whois database.
God does not play dice - Einstein
Not only does God play dice, he sometimes throws them where they
OK, so we all know what the so-called 7 Dirty Words are... we've known ever since we were little children that they are "dirty." But what I have never understood is why they are dirty, besides the fact that someone told us that they are.
:"I just have to bang in one more nail and I'm done with the doghouse"? Then why not use fuck as a synonym, as in: "I just have to fuck in one more nail and I'm done with the doghouse"?
Why is "fuck" a bad word? It is simply a synonym for sex, usually mindless sex. But is not "I fucked Susy" the same as, "I screwed Susy" or "I banged Susy"? If so, then why not add screw and bang to the dirty word list? Is is because screw and bang have other meanings, as in
Yes, it sounds silly, but that's only because fuck is not part of our everyday language, just like the other 6 words. And there's no reason they can't be. The only reason that these words carry negative connotations is because someone told us that they do, not for the reasons that, say, "Satan" has negative connotations.
So what I say is this: Want to get rid of those words that offend people? The easiest way to do that is to make those word inoffensible. Let everyone use them in everyday language and they will lose their shock value. And then those who use them strictly for their shock value will stop using them, and those of us who use them to express ourselves will continue to use them just as we always have and always will.
"I'd like to live in theory, because everything works in theory, in theory." - Can't remember who said this.
Assuming you think it looks good... NSI still gets a cut of every domain registration. Presumably it's their compensation for running the root server. Personally, I think its a load of crapola. It's about time a non profit agancy/company like ICANN too over the whole root server scenario and made the system fair for all of the registrars...
--
Quantum Linux Laboratories
Accelerating Business with Linux
* Education
* Enterprise Integration
* Support
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
....I think it's really time for NSI to dump their database and adopt the RIPE whois database format.... it's SO much neater.... and free, too.... :)
Item 10 of the Agreements section of the Registry Agreement says "NSI shall not be entitled to claim any intellectual property rights in data in the registry supplied by or through registrars other than NSI". Note that other than NSI clause. Its clear that NSI will still be able to claim copyright on its database.
To make this explicit for the boys in the back row firing spitwads at each other: groups with enough resources snap up their names in every major TLD "to avoid confusion." Adding more TLDs without controls over who can use them is unlikely to change this, and will probably result in little effect except that the registrar business will become a little more profitable as a larger block of names has to be purchased every time a new movie, breakfast cereal, or presidential candidate is launched.
Furthermore, so long as the Big Two browsers default to
It's about damned time something happened...
Yesterday, I received a bill from NSI postmarked September 25, 1999. Of course, the DUE DATE was listed as Sept 15, 1999.
Given nothing else, that alone lends little to public confidence in a company...
woof!
- The government puts out the word and interviews some people qualified to run such a volunteer operation.
- An organization is set up and, ironically, a domain registered (say usdomainreg.org, for example).
- An army of volunteers is recruited to manage the database, the registration process, and everything that goes with it.
- The cost for registering a domain goes down, perhaps not -- and the money would go to fund the project.
Wacky idea? It has worked well for Linux, Apache, Perl, etc...Just wondering, RP
From where do the USA take the right to rule over the Internet?
Look out for appearances of "Department of Commerce" in the text. Example:
No, .us is for US-only sites, just like .uk is for UK-only sites.
.com, .net and .org are for international sites. They are just misused often.
At least
I'll agree that the squatting is a problem; it's the 90s equivalent of ticket scalping. But you're in effect advocating a several hundred percent tax, which is ridiculous. I agree with Airneil, the only people that suffer in that case are the hobbyists like myself. Just can't justify it.
.org, .com, and .net forces people to be more creative with their site names, and creativity is always a cool thing.
On the up side, the fact that most every word in the English language has already been registered in
-F
Someone has to administer the tlds. Might as well be the people who have the experience.
-Adam
If an infinite number of rednecks, driving an infinite number of pickups, fired an infinite number of shotguns at an infinite number of road signs, they would reproduce all the great works of literature in Braille.
If you take a look at h ttp://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/agreeme nts/nsi-registry-agreement.htm. And scroll down to "Agreements" point 20, you will see this paragraph:
20. Price for Registry Services. The price(s) to accredited registrars for entering initial and renewal SLD registrations into the registry database and for transferring a SLD registration from one accredited registrar to another will be as set forth in Section 5 of Appendix B, Registrar License and Agreement. These prices shall be increased through an amendment to this Agreement as approved by ICANN and NSI, such approval not to be unreasonably withheld, to reflect demonstrated increases in the net costs of operating the registry arising from (1) ICANN policies adopted after the date of this Agreement, or (2) legislation specifically applicable to the provision of Registry Services adopted after the date of this Agreement, to ensure that NSI recovers such costs and a reasonable profit thereon; provided that such increases exceed any reductions in costs arising from (1) or (2) above.
It basically states that if NSI and ICANN feel they aren't makeing enough money, they can raise the prices accordingly.... Does anyone else see a problem with this?
Chris
Doesn't this just establish retail outlets for domain names that NSI will sell wholesale? Therefor, isn't NSI still in control? Will the "retail chains" have to be licensed? If NSI is going to remain in charge of the central database, I'd like to see anyone be able to sell domain names wholesale rather than having a select few who have to bow and scrape to NSI (which will still be a competitor) lest NSI makes it more difficult for them to operate. This is not a good thing yet. We're closer to something, but I hope it doesn't take another five years to get there.
They've got one hand in their pockets and another in the coffers. I don't think we should like it when we give out conflicts of interest to companies.
-- Moondog
Not just cheaper, but free. Coming soon: www.namezero.com I'm not affiliated with the company, I'm just glad that Network Solutions' will get a formidable competitor.
Slashdot sucks
The registrar license agreement is laid out at:m ents/nsi-rla-28sept99.htm
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/agree
Section 5 has all the fees.
Now I realize that this does open up the possibility for price competition, which was one of the main points of all of this. But it also seems that one of the points was to kill NSI as a monopoly. If every single time a domain is registered, regardless of the registrar, NSI still gets a minumum of $9, I don't see that that has been effectively done. Heck -- NSI could sell domains for $8, a fee that no other registrar would be able to match, and still make money all the way around.
I really don't see how any of this can mean a thing until a 3rd party (ICANN would seem the obvious choice, execept for how much they appear to be bungling everything) maintains the central registry. I would even go so far as to say that there should be a not-for-profit entity created who exists solely to maintain the registry and does nothing else.
In particular, take away webmin.org from M$. I got there once looking for a Linux tool...