please advise

["Ken Ryan " <ken.ryan@operamail.com>]

Gentlemen,

Last October ICANN solicited comments on its Plan of Action Regarding New gTLDs. I wrote a suggestion – still available at URL 
http://forum.icann.org/gtld-plan-comments/general/msg00014.html. 
Although ICANN is mandated to oversee policy for determining “the circumstances under which new top level domains would be added” Mr. Lynn responded that my suggestion was a question for the IETF. 

I suggest extending the character set used within the DNS to include e.g. “#” or “*” which would allow the addition of a numeric qualifier to otherwise identical domain names. This would permit registration of both “lotus*2.com” and “lotus*3.com” as separate explicit domain names. At the same time it would allow multiple use of the implicit domain name “lotus.com” since the “*” could function as a wildcard character to allow directories (outside the DNS) of name owners, content type, etc. 

The only technical change I see to the DNS specification presented in RFC1035 is the addition of an extra character to the collection of hyphen, digits 0-9 and alphabetical letters.

The DNS was first described around 1983-84 (RFC882) when the Internet connected approximately 1000 hosts, and full specifications were written in 1987 (RFC034-1035). In 1994 Dr. Postel made several comments about domain names in RFC1591, including: “It is extremely unlikely that any other TLDs will be created.” and “The registration of a domain name does not have any Trademark status.” 

Two years later Dr. Postel accepted the creation of additional TLDs, although I don’t know if that comment was added to any RFC, and the 1998 Department of Commerce White Paper proposed the addition of up to 5 new TLDs. In subsequent MOUs the DOC has mandated  ICANN to “Continue the process of implementing new top level domains…” The decision to add TLDs may have been a simple but sub-optimal reaction to Government embarrassment at having granted a monopolistic license for running the TLD registries to a single company. The DOC still mentions the need to establish robust competition among TLD registries as a prime concern, and I assume new gTLDs is the means they see to that end.  

The original set of gTLDs created a simple but powerful mental model of the Internet - .com meant information from commercial companies, .edu meant information from educational institutions, .org meant information from not-for-profit groups, etc. The genius of the original concept is shown by the way those top level domains have been assimilated by the global society, the relative lack of success demonstrated by new gTLDs, and VeriSign’s ability to make a business case for back ordering .com domain names. 

The addition of new gTLDs has not proven to be successful fix for many of the problems we associate with the DNS such as cybersquatting and related domain name disputes. Defensive registration diminishes the number of domain names in active use. I suspect the growth of alternate roots is a reaction to the shortage of ‘desirable’ domain names in the original gTLDs. 

The list of advantages presented in my letter to ICANN includes eliminating the motive for cybersquatting, mapping to the real world of trademarks (which are NOT exclusive; Apple can be a computer or music publisher, Lotus can be a car or software, etc.), extending the availability of ‘desirable’ .com domain names, maintaining a relevant mental model for users, etc. My suggestion supports the original mental model of the Internet naming system, and reasserts domain names as addresses rather than intellectual property. 

I don’t what to be rude nor ask rhetorical questions, but I would appreciate your views on 2 items: 

- If the DOC controls DNS development through mandates to ICANN, is there any point in attempting to find a technical solution to DNS problems?
- If “market forces” support alternative roots such as AlterNIC, new.net and most recently VertSign’s Internationalized Domain Names built on an expanded character set, is there any point in initiating the slow IETF standardization process?

Best regards,
Ken Ryan