Re: .us - various issues

[Jeff Williams <jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com>]

Russ and all,

  I thought I would share your experiences regarding the .US as it relates
to ISI's management of it, with some other lists as I have also experienced
similar experiences with ISI and also the IANA and now ICANN as well...

domainiac wrote:

> I would like to respond to several issues revolving around the .us system
> brought up on this list an the DC meeting a couple months ago.
>
> -This mailing list.  I attended the meeting but I didn't get any sort
> notification about this list.  I happened to see it because I check the NTIA
> site regularly but as far as I know there has been no notification of the
> meeting participants (other than the federal register notice which, of
> course, almost nobody reads).  I posted a few notices in newsgroups.  This
> list is being maintained by NTIA at www.ntia.doc.gov.  NTIA is a small group
> within the Dept. of Commerce and they deal with telecommunications policy
> issues such as spectrum management, Internet commerce and privacy, and the
> domain name system.  As far as I can tell they have no technical expertise
> and are made up of lawyers and policy people.
>
> -My background with .us.  I have registered a few .us domain
> (alcatraz.san-francisco.ca.us, santa.north-pole.ak.us,
> consumer.washington,dc.us, and times-square.new-york.ny.us).  I have found
> that trying to register .us domains to be very problematic.  Some of the
> domains are administered by ISI and others have been delegated to others who
> have requested to be registrars for certain cities.  Many of the domain
> records (such as nameservers for delegated domains) are years out of date.
> There is also no clear set of rules (note the notation at ISI's web site
> that claims the web page postings supercede the RFC's!).
>
> The registration of .us is very haphazard.  When registering via ISI you
> immediately get a response.  it says not to bother contacting them for at
> least 4 weeks.  I waited the 4 weeks then I had to make at least 5 calls
> over the next 2 or 3 weeks just to get a domain registered.  Total time was
> almost 2 months.  Any business who needed a domain would have given up long
> before that and gone to .com.
>
> I also dealt with some of the delegated registrars.  Some were free.
> However, one registrar who was doing it for free took this as a license to
> set his own rules.  He refused to register some domains I requested, accused
> me of "domain abuse," and said he would not administer the domain any more
> if ISI actually enforced the rules.  I contacted ISI and they won't respond
> at all.  The domains are still there, completely unused.  Other delegated
> registrars do not give any information about .us registration at their web
> site.  One sent me a bill only after I completed a registration (which I
> thought was free).
>
> -commercial use.  I think the people complaining about commercial use of the
> .us domains (or sending commercial messages to this list) are misguided.  If
> there is not a commercial use of the .us it will never amount to much.  The
> fact is that operating a domain system costs time and money and none of the
> complainers seem to be willing to put up their funds.  I would much rather
> pay a small fee than deal with some delegated volunteer hostmaster who has a
> distorted view of the world.  Those that think there are all these
> volunteers willing to do the work, supply the equipment, and coordinate
> their efforts are dreaming.
>
> I would not object for preserving parts of the .US for non-commercial use
> (even subsidized).  However, once you get into these classifications it
> costs time and money to administer such a plan and verify who is commercial,
> etc.  Also, this distinction is often impossible to make.  The whole idea is
> to generate commercial use of the space, not stop it.  I would like to see
> more ideas on commercial use (and yes, that includes a business plan to pay
> the bills and plan for scalability if it should grow).  Calling the
> registrars who are charging a reasonable fee "greedy" is also not valid.
> You get what you pay for.
>
> -New proposals.  The thing that strikes me the most about the proposals
> about the site is that most want to somehow link the plan to something Jon
> Postel said or did.  The fact is that most people do not know or care what
> Jon Postel said or did.  The idea is to develop a workable system, not have
> a memorial for Jon Postel.  Maybe Dr. Postel did and said many good things
> but that was another time and place.  However, he had a major hand in
> setting up the ICANN disaster.  the ISI reps. at the Washington meeting
> actually announce themselves by saying how many years they worked with
> Postel.  It is time to move on.
>
> -leaving the system with ISI.  for the reasons stated above and based on the
> presentation they gave at the DC meeting I would support moving the system
> completely away from ISI.  their discussions at the meeting was about
> stopping people from "grabbing" names and other forms of what they call
> "abuse."  The whole idea is to get people to use the domains, not prevent
> people from using the system.  ISI also indicated their budget was only $10K
> (I assume this doesn't cover salaries) which is not anywhere near adequate.
> Of course who would fund something almost nobody wants to use.  A
> coordinated, funded system is needed that is promoted and used.  right now
> there is not even a coordinated WHOIS for the 3rd level domains being
> registered.
>
> -Multiple uses:  Nothing prevents multiple uses of the .us system.  For
> instance, the Postal Service could run the xxx.city.state.us portion while
> others could still manage xxx.us and/or xxx.state.us.  There is no technical
> limitation whatsoever to run these parallel system.  As for the post office
> wanting the system all I have to say is that at least somebody wants it.
> The Postal service probably should bid in a competitive procurement since
> they are competing with other commercial entities but I expect there would
> not be any other qualified bidders if this was procured competitively.
>
> -Big companies using xxxx.us.  At the DC meeting some tried to push getting
> big businesses to use .us.  one example was a  hotel chain that could use
> hotelname.washington.dc.us, etc.  I think this is barking up the wrong tree.
> The big companies, for the most part, already have the .com name which can
> be divided into city.state.name.com if they want.  the fact is they would
> rather have people go to xxxx.com and then click to find the specific city.
> Why would they waste time and effort registering all different domains in
> different cities?  It is the small business that would find uses, not large
> corporations.  Bank of America already has Alcatraz.com so when I went to
> set up my Alcatraz site I was able to get alcatraz.san-francisco.ca.us.
> This is much too long to type but it works well with the search engines.  I
> think promoting this domain space should be focused on small, local
> businesses and personal/family use.
>
> -elimination of .com, .net, and .org in favor of .us -  Why waste time
> discussing this since it will never happen?
>
> Russ smith
> http://consumer.net
> http://domainia.org

Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng/SR. Java/CORBA Development Eng.
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com
Contact Number:  972-447-1894
Address: 5 East Kirkwood Blvd. Grapevine Texas 75208