Re: [ga-roots] Capture and Diversion (was Smart Browsers)

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald@alvestrand.no>]

At 17:31 01.05.2001 -0700, Kristy McKee wrote:
>IMHO this is beyond ICANN's scope as Bret mentioned ealier:  the IETF is 
>the place for decisions like these to happen; therefore if we do have an 
>opinion I recommend we direct it in their direction.

not even there....

In my opinion, there are 2 different levels:

- Resolving an URL or other identifier that contains a domain name. That 
needs to be done "honestly", in that the result of the resolution is what 
the owner of the domain name expected to happen when the resolution was 
attempted in that context.
The reason for the recent lawsuit in Korea was that someone was "hijacking" 
the (embedded-in-browser) hostname "search.microsoft.com", causing it to 
resolve to something not sanctioned by the name owner.
Eugene Kashpureff was jailed for the same type of reason.

- Presenting an input field to the user, receiving input from the user, and 
translating that into something that the user expects.
Here we delve into the realm of user interface, something well beyond the 
control of ICANN policy pronouncements, and well beyond the realm of "one 
size fits all".
I have yet to see a browser user interface that directs me to something 
other than the URL in question when I type "http://www.alvestrand.no/" or 
equivalent; however, typing "alvestrand" in my 2 installed browsers 
provides different results (one a guessed hostname, the other a search result).

I think this particular community, which concentrates on ICANN and the 
domain name system, needs to focus on the first one.

The IETF, being a technical protocol standardization community, can 
reasonably focus on mechanisms to support functions like those mentioned in 
the second group (such as the recently completed CNRP keywords protocol 
specification). But restricting user interfaces is beyond the scope of the 
IETF.

(BTW, the opt-out for URL-field searching in IE 5 is Tools/Internet 
Options/Advanced/Search from the Address Bar/When Searching/Do not search 
from the address bar)


   

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