- tld-wg - mailman.ripe.net

Europeans Disappointed By Net Names Plan
by hank＠ibm.net.il 02 Feb '98

02 Feb '98

I rest my case... Europeans Disappointed By Net Names Plan ( 1/30/98; 9:00 p.m. EST) By Douglas Hayward, TechWeb European Internet organizations could barely disguise their disappointment with a plan published Friday by the U.S. government to privatize the running of the Internet's domain name system. In what has been called the "green paper," the U.S. government said it wants a private nonprofit corporation to control the entire Internet domain name system. The new corporation would appoint up to five independent organizations -- known as registries -- to administer domain names. Each of these registries would be entitled to administer a single new top-level domain. Possible new top-level domains mentioned by the paper include .vend and .store. The U.S. government plan is a grievous blow to two closely related European-based organizations -- the Internet Policy Oversight Committee and the Council of Registrars (CORE) -- which proposed last year to create seven new top-level domains. The White House document gives no detailed timeline for introducing its five proposed new domains, whereas the European bodies planned to get their seven new domains operating by late March 1998. "The plans published today by the U.S. government will delay the introduction of competition among organizations registering domain names," said Jonathan Robinson, managing director of General Internet, a British domain-name registrar that sells .com and .co addresses to users. "That is something that will only serve the interests of entrenched monopolies," he said. "There is no way that cheaper Internet domains are now going to be made available to users right away," said Robinson, whose company hoped to sell addresses using the seven new domains proposed by the European groups. "There is no time frame in the U.S. government plan for establishing the new domain names," said Antony Van Couvering, president of the U.S. arm of London-based domain name registrar, NetNames. "It could be a year or more, despite the fact that CORE and some alternative registries are ready to go," he said. "The plan essentially pushes off all the difficult questions to a group that won't be formed until the year 2000," Van Couvering said. "What is everyone going to do in the meantime?" The green paper effectively guarantees the U.S. government a long-term role in directing the Internet, even though the Clinton administration is supposedly privatizing the administration of the Net, Robinson added. "This just entrenches the U.S government's position, when it should be handing power over to the Internet community," Robinson said. The Internet Policy Oversight Committee and CORE are not going to accept the U.S. government plans, said Robert Shaw, a leading member of the committee. The plan to give commercial groups control over individual top-level domains is a cause for concern, said Shaw, who is an adviser at the International Telecommunication Union, the Geneva-based United nations agency. "The problem with the concept of top-level domains being owned by commercial registries is that the database is worth tremendous commercial value," Shaw said. "We could have a situation where one company in the U.S. is going to have right to one very high value domain name, such as .inc," he said. The committee and CORE will meet with White House technology adviser Ira Magaziner soon to express their concerns, he added. European Internet service providers gave the plan a cautious welcome Friday, but said that the not-for-profit private organization proposed to run the new infrastructure would need greater input from service providers. "Overall, it looks like a pretty good plan, but we are concerned about a lack of recognition of the fact that Internet service providers are stakeholders in the Internet," said Jim Dixon, president of Euro-ISPA, a group which coordinates the activities of national Internet service providers' associations in Europe. "This is a bit silly, given that Internet service providers are investing billions of dollars in developing the Internet," he said. Dixon said the group would like to see the proposed new body restructured slightly so that Internet services providers as a whole have more influence. "But otherwise we are rather satisfied," Dixon said. Friday's plan is a setback for some European government officials who openly backed the two European groups in their failed attempt to create new domains and take over administration of the Internet's domain name system. "A lot of people in Europe are going to be extremely embarrassed by this plan, and we are going to have to come up with some graceful exit options for them," said a high-ranking manager at a European service provider, who asked not to be named. "They have made a major contribution to reforming the domain name system, but they lost the debate." -------- Logged at Mon Feb 2 13:21:28 MET 1998 ---------

1 0

KIS ASS
by peter＠2day.net.nz 02 Feb '98

02 Feb '98

>mr.postel IS the root you fool :-) Everybody down here thinks he is a human, much like the rest of us. Maybe thats what happens if you spend too much time with name servers. One becomes a DOT. >he hase build them up at a time you probably where not even aware of your >self-me too and terefor i respekt dr.postel and would folow his lead for >ever For ever is a fairly long time :-) Sascha, you make a great supporter of the people you believe in, I give you that. That's about as strong a statement one can make about anybody else. I hope Dr Postel and others dont ever let you down. You may be in for some disappointment. regards Peter Mott Chief Enthusiast 2Day Internet Limited. -------- Logged at Mon Feb 2 03:17:24 MET 1998 ---------

1 0

[Fwd: US Govt. paper on Internet Government released]
by Niall.oReilly＠ucd.ie 31 Jan '98

31 Jan '98

An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "Wayne D. Correia" <wayne at domain.net> Subject: US Govt. paper on Internet Government released Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 10:31:57 -0800 Size: 2053 URL: <https://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/tld-wg/attachments/19980131/e7ed884…>

1 0

Magaziners views
by schneider＠switch.ch 27 Jan '98

27 Jan '98

For those who did not yet see it: http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/9867.html "... The one big difference is in the root zone servers, which coordinate the addressing functions of the Net's top-level domains and are currently managed by NSI. They would be handed over to a private, non-profit organization that Magaziner said would be a "bottoms-up sort of stakeholder formed for the Internet." What Magaziner is essentially recommending is that the US government get out of the management of the Internet. He said that certain functions require coordination - such as assigning blocks of numeric IP addresses, currently handled by the government-chartered Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, or IANA. This coordination, Magaziner said, "should come from the Internet community and not from our government, or any other governmental institution. It rests from our government for historical reasons, but we need to get away from that." He is advocating the creation of a new non-profit, private sector institution - made up of the stakeholders of the Internet - to handle this kind of coordination, with current agencies such as IANA folded into it. ..." Marcel -------- Logged at Sat Jan 31 03:18:02 MET 1998 ---------

1 0

RIPE CENTR proposal is published
by balazs＠novell.aszi.sztaki.hu 26 Jan '98

26 Jan '98

>the proposal for RIPE CENTR has been published as ripe-177. It can be found at >http://www.ripe.net/docs/ripe-177.html In the RIPE CENTR proposal I found links on "activities of RIPE CENTR" pointing to RIPE NCC activities. What specific activities of these have been identified as RIPE CENTR activities? Balazs -------- Logged at Mon Jan 26 12:03:59 MET 1998 ---------

2 1

How Europe caused CORE to fail
by hank＠ibm.net.il 25 Jan '98

25 Jan '98

At 10:00 PM 1/24/98 +0000, Jim Dixon wrote: >> Out of 11+2 members on POC, Rob Austein, Dave Maher, Glen Kowack and >> Alan Hanson are USA reps. That makes USA representation about 30%. Go >> back a year and you will find that in the IAHC the USA made up 54%. > >Ignore the observers who are, after all, only observers. Correct the >count by adding Robert Shaw and Albert Tramposch back in (Tramposch >only just left the POC) and you have 6/11 Americans, or 55.5% American. >That is, the "decrease" in US representation is scarcely the issue. Unfortunately, the US gov't does not view people who live and work outside the USA for foreign organizations as representing "their" viewpoint. Albert and Bob fall into that category. As to observers - whether they vote or not - there are no Americans there. > >> Now lets look at the current gTLDs: com/net/org. 99% of all USA based >> companies register their names in these 3 gTLDs. If we examine the RIPE >> stats that are published each month, I would guess that only about 10% >> of companies in Europe register in the gTLD area and prefer the nTLDs. >> So the general makeup of current users of gTLDs is overwhelming USA (we >> have said all along the gTLDs is a USA based problem and they should >> migrate to .us as everyone else is using the ISO3166 nTLD effectively). > >You can count this various ways. By domain count US-registered .COM >entries are somewhere in the low 70%s. > >> So for something that is mainly used by Americans, and created by >> Americans (Arpanet), and run by Americans (IANA), we were able to >> extract 46% non-USA participants. Not bad. But anyone who has followed >> the IAHC, iPOC, POC lists and discussions knows that Europe and >> non-Americans have been clamoring for *more* representation. So now USA >> has a minority stake in POC (30%), due to the unrelenting pressure of >> certain geographical interest groups. > >The POC was actually attempting to curry favour in Europe by handing >out seats. This succeeded in Europe but may certainly have backfired >in the States. Bingo! You hit the nail right on the head. > >But the gTLD MOU's problems aren't due to a lack of American presence. >They are due to a very vocal North American-based opposition who are >disdained by those who have been acting as spokesmen for the gTLD MOU >and to a lack of industry support. Of the world's 10,000 or so ISPs >only a few dozen have signed the MOU. Why? Essentially because the >gTLD MOU crowd have ignored them and ignored their interests. > >> What have you gained? It could very well end up to be "king of nothing". >> The USA gov't is not stupid. The gTLD MoU was set up in Geneva, >> controlled via a very European run organization (ITU - go thru the halls >> and count the number of European employees) and we might have been able >> to pull it all off if certain people had checked their geo-egos at the >> door and looked at what they had gained. > >All of this was done long ago and done by a US-dominated POC. The >loudest voices defending the decision to locate in Geneva (Crocker, >Shaw, Maher, Tramposch, etc) are certainly American. Because it was and still is the "right" thing to do. If Europe hopes to have CORE and the gTLD MoU succeed (and not lose it all) it should contact POC and state that the US gov't be allowed to determine the size and staffing of POC. Let Ira and Bill place reps from MCI and Uunet on POC. > >> You have only yourselves to blame if CORE gets dissolved. > >These comments are interesting set against reports that IANA, ISOC, >the POC, and CORE are intent on ignoring the US government and are >raising a $10 million war chest to fight expected lawsuits. Who wins? Not the US gov't. Not CORE. Not Europe. NSI does. Think about it. -Hank > >-- >Jim Dixon VBCnet GB Ltd http://www.vbc.net >tel +44 117 929 1316 fax +44 117 927 2015 > > -------- Logged at Sun Jan 25 16:00:10 MET 1998 ---------

2 1

How Europe caused CORE to fail
by hank＠ibm.net.il 25 Jan '98

25 Jan '98

As many of you are aware the entire gTLD MoU and CORE setup is close to dissolving. Extract from: http://www.nwfusion.com/news/0122dns.html Sources said Magaziner may reject the CORE proposal because it was designed "behind closed doors" and because it would have shifted domain naming from the U.S. to Geneva. Magaziner declined to comment. ----------------------------------------------------------- Best stop now if you don't want some serious flammage. <FLAME> One of the two major reasons the USA gov't has back off of this entire proposal is the removal of the USA from gTLDs (the other is trademark issues). Lets look at the current POC: Amadeu Abril i Abril, <amadeu at nominalia.com>, Spain-Europe, appointed by CORE Rob Austein, <sra at epilogue.com>, USA-Americas, appointed by IAB Willie Black, <w.black at nominet.org.uk>, UK-Europe, appointed by IANA Patrik F?ltstr?m, <paf at swip.net>, Sweden-Europe, appointed by IAB Christopher Gibson, <christopher.gibson at wipo.int>, International Treaty Organization, appointed by WIPO Geert Glas, <geert.glas at lcv.be>, Belgium-Europe, appointed by INTA Alan Hanson, <alan at finet.net>, USA-Americas, appointed by CORE Glen Kowack, <gkowack at well.com>, USA-Americas, appointed by IANA David W. Maher (POC Chair), <dwmaher at ibm.net>, USA-Americas, appointed by ISOC Robert Shaw, <robert.shaw at itu.int>, International Treaty Organization, appointed by ITU Christopher Wilkinson, <christopher.wilkinson at bxl.dg13.cec.be>, Belgium-Europe, appointed by ISOC PAB Observers Peter Mott, <peter at 2day.net.nz>, New Zealand-Asia-Pacific, appointed by gTLD-MoU Policy Advisory Body Javier Sola, <jsola at aui.es>, Spain-Europe, appointed by gTLD-MoU Policy Advisory Body Out of 11+2 members on POC, Rob Austein, Dave Maher, Glen Kowack and Alan Hanson are USA reps. That makes USA representation about 30%. Go back a year and you will find that in the IAHC the USA made up 54%. Out of 11 people on the IAHC clearly 6 were USA based and residing American citizens: Sally Abel, Georges Strawn, Perry Metzger, Dave Crocker, Don Heath, Dave Maher. Now lets look at the current gTLDs: com/net/org. 99% of all USA based companies register their names in these 3 gTLDs. If we examine the RIPE stats that are published each month, I would guess that only about 10% of companies in Europe register in the gTLD area and prefer the nTLDs. So the general makeup of current users of gTLDs is overwhelming USA (we have said all along the gTLDs is a USA based problem and they should migrate to .us as everyone else is using the ISO3166 nTLD effectively). So for something that is mainly used by Americans, and created by Americans (Arpanet), and run by Americans (IANA), we were able to extract 46% non-USA participants. Not bad. But anyone who has followed the IAHC, iPOC, POC lists and discussions knows that Europe and non-Americans have been clamoring for *more* representation. So now USA has a minority stake in POC (30%), due to the unrelenting pressure of certain geographical interest groups. What have you gained? It could very well end up to be "king of nothing". The USA gov't is not stupid. The gTLD MoU was set up in Geneva, controlled via a very European run organization (ITU - go thru the halls and count the number of European employees) and we might have been able to pull it all off if certain people had checked their geo-egos at the door and looked at what they had gained. Today, as well as last year, Europe has zero say in anything regarding gTLDs. NSI and IANA do not listen to the ITU, WIPO, the EC nor anyone out of the USA government. We were on the way to convincing the USA gov't to go along with the plan and suddenly it finds out that only 30% of the people are American. So once Ira and Bill scuttle the CORE plan, ITU/WIPO/EC will be right back where it was a two years ago with once again zero say in the gTLD realm. You have only yourselves to blame if CORE gets dissolved. Hank Nussbacher former IAHC member former iPOC member IL nTLD contact </FLAME> Sorry I have been rather blunt, but just had to get this off my chest. -------- Logged at Sat Jan 24 20:40:23 MET 1998 ---------

3 2

RIPE CENTR proposal is published
by hank＠ibm.net.il 24 Jan '98

24 Jan '98

At 04:02 PM 1/23/98 +0100, Paul Ridley wrote: Is there a major reason for maintaining tld-admin and tld-wg? The groups overlap and I see no reason for maintaining two groups? Can't they be merged? -Hank >Dear all, > >the proposal for RIPE CENTR has been published as ripe-177. It can be found at >http://www.ripe.net/docs/ripe-177.html > >This document is essential reading for all ntld administrators as is described >the setting up of an organisation for RIPE area ntlds. I will also be making a >presentation on this proposal at the forthcoming tld-wg meeting. > >Any comments to the author (although preferably on tld-wg at ripe.net) would be >appreciated. > >I look forward to hearing your comments. > >Regards > >Paul > > > > -------- Logged at Sat Jan 24 20:22:35 MET 1998 ---------

4 3

Latest Draft Agenda for TLD-WG session at RIPE 29
by Niall.oReilly＠ucd.ie 23 Jan '98

23 Jan '98

RIPE 29 TLD-WG -- Proposed Agenda 1. Administrivia (09:00, 5 mins) 1.1 recognition of Scribe 1.2 agreement of Agenda 2. Matters arising from RIPE 28 TLD-WG meeting (09:05, 10 mins) 2.1 adoption of minutes 2.2 review of action list TLD-27.3 Daniel Karrenberg to prepare "IANA future structure" paper Done -- see http://www.ripe.net/wg/lir/iana-paper/IANA-paper.html To be discussed under item 6. TLD-28.1 Task Force to document proposed structure for support of management of DNS root Done -- see http://www.ripe.net/wg/tld/task-force/ripe-centr-1.1.html Proposes regional bodies to mediate nTLD support for IANA and RIPE-CENTR as such a body for RIPE area. To be discussed under item 6. TLD-28.2 RIPE-NCC to develop proposal for TLD Co-ordination activity Done -- see http://www.ripe.net/docs/ripe-177.html Proposes structure and activities of RIPE-CENTR To be discussed under item 7. TLD-28.3 WG Chair to alert TLD Administrators to DOC/NTIA enquiry and POC RFC's Part done -- mailed tld-admin at ripe.net 8 Oct 1997 re POC RFC's 3. Brief news (09:15, 5 mins) (not covered by other agenda items, if any) 4. Operational issues (09:20, 10 mins) (if any) 5. Review Workplan (09:30, 15 mins) Workplan is due for formal review at each WG meeting. Proposals for change and/or (re-) prioritization should be submitted before the meeting, please. 6. IANA and stability of the root (09:45, 45 mins) 6.1 Presentation on recent developments (R.Blokzijl) 6.2 Review progress on action TLD-27.1 6.3 Review progress on action TLD-28.1 (M.Schneider) 6.4 Update on EU/US Government contacts (C.Wilkinson) -- Coffee Break (10:30, 30 mins) -- 7. WG Support Activity: RIPE-CENTR (11:00, 20 mins) Review progress on action TLD-28.2 (P.Ridley) 8. nTLD issues (11:20, 20 mins) Documentation, harmonisation ... Identify and assign first actions in this area 9. gTLD issues (11:40, 20 mins) POC information meetings Possible "boundary issues" with nTLD's 10. AOB (12:00, 5 mins) 11. Conclusions (12:05, 20 mins) 11.1 revisit workplan priorities 11.2 summarize action list -- Close (12:25) -- -------- Logged at Sat Jan 24 03:04:18 MET 1998 ---------

1 0

Documentation suggestions (was: RIPE 29: reminder)
by hank＠ibm.net.il 23 Jan '98

23 Jan '98

At 02:06 PM 1/21/98 +0100, Marcel Schneider wrote: >... >> - in the ntld doc you should mention rfc1591 and that iana and ntlds should >> work according to this rfc (in regards to transfer of ownership, etc.) >> - I think a set of docs need to be created by the ntld WG for any nTLD that >> is sued. IL has just been sued in the Supreme Court by a cybersquatter. An >> excellent resource used to be: >> http://www.digidem.com/legal/domain.html >> which compares many policies of ntlds - but we need to have something that >> continues to be maintained. When someone dislikes your authority in your >> country over your ntld - they will sue you and not iana. For that we need >> to be prepared. > >Hank Nussbacher's comment is certainly valid. Please refer to >the famous Haiti case: > >http://www.mids.org/mn/712/reht.html > >I am in complete agreement with John Quarterman's remark at the >end of above article: > >"Perhaps regional NICs such as RIPE <URL:http://www.ripe.net/> in Europe and >APNIC <URL:http://www.apnic.net/> in Asia Pacific, probably plus the >eventual African and ALyC NICs, should consider going further than just >funding IANA and assigning IP address space, and proceed >to devolve more IANA functions to the regional level." > >RIPE CENTR could be the body to handle all nTLD matters within >the territory of RIPE. Distributed, decentralized authority. In >accordance with DNS and IP/AS number assignment. How would the RIPE CENTR be any benefit from a legal standpoint? Someone will come forward and say "What gov't or treaty organization granted you authority?" RIPE CENTR would say IANA and we are back to square one. If IANA can attain some legal status that would help us. I have scanned most english rules for domains in Europe. Only Finland has its rules according to the gov't. All the rest are NICs and academic organizations that put together rules (there may be others that will have gov't legalized rules in the future - but so far only Finland has taken that step - and they even mention IANA!) If the RIPE CENTR is to be of any benefit it first has to have some major legal standing and not just our consensus (meaning those on this list). -Hank > > >Marcel > > -------- Logged at Thu Jan 22 00:19:09 MET 1998 ---------

3 2