Re: [wg-c] Re: nine principles for domain names

[Dave Crocker <dcrocker@brandenburg.com>]

At 11:59 AM 2/21/2000 -0500, Milton Mueller wrote:
> > 1. We do believe that the assumption that all gTLDs will/should stand for
> > something is valid.
>Philip, this assumption is utterly meaningless. "Stand for something" to WHOM?

There is an established practise with gTLDs, so there is an operational 
basis for knowing what "meaning" means.  There is also a documented 
meaning, since there have long-been descriptive sentences associated with 
existing gTLDs.  The model's extensibility was demonstrated by the proposal 
for additional gTLDs made by the IAHC/POC.

That said, this exchange does highlight that more careful and extensive -- 
or at least more formal and operationally precise -- definition of the 
nature/basis for a gTLD's semantics would be useful.  Using established 
practise, I suggest something like the following:

"We believe that the requirement that all gTLDs have associated 
descriptions of their intended meaning."


>What you really seem to be saying is that a small group of people should 
>decide
>for everyone else what is meaningful and what is not.

The text as originally proposed said nothing about the details of the 
decision process for deciding on the strings and their meanings.


> > The alternative is to not bother with a gTLD and use only the IP address.
>The alternative is to let registries select the strings they want to 
>operate and
>do the work to vest those strings with meaning.

What makes the small group of registry operators better than other bodies 
for doing the selecting?

Anticipating a "let the market decide" line of thinking will get us to 
companies' experimenting with the marketability of a string and then going 
out of business when it is not profitable.  At that point, the unfortunate 
organizations that chose to register under the TLD will be left without 
service.

This gives a good indication of the reason that DNS service needs to be 
counted as an infrastructure and the sole-source technical constraint -- 
only one organization can be registrar for a given TLD -- mandates that 
operational stability included assurance that TLDs persist.  Going out of 
business is an extreme form of instability.  We do not tolerate it for 
telephone numbers or street addresses; why tolerate it for domain names?


> > 3. The reason for the semantics principle  containing "meaningful with a
> > significant number of net users" is intended to distinguish the global
> > nature of a gTLD versus the ccTLD.  A domain name with a less than
> > significant number of net users would be better suited to a sub domain
> > within a ccTLD or a language charter gTLD.
>Again, this is just none of your business, or ICANN's business. The name space
>is not scarce. TLDs do not have to be rationed out like water in the Sahara.

For all of the continued efforts to claim that TLD space is infinite, it is 
not, although there is legitimate technical debate about the severity of 
the actual limitation to the space.

High estimates are VERY high.  Low estimates are in the thousands.  If we 
believe the low estimates and they are wrong, we can add more names 
safely.  If we believe the high estimates and they are wrong, we break the 
DNS (and, therefore, make the Internet useless for almost all users.  Hence 
there is a requirement to approach the question of name space size with 
significant caution.  It's fine to call that constraint "artificial" but 
the label does not make the constraint any the less advisable.

Hence there is a very practical requirement for treating the TLD space as 
limited, at this time.

As to whose business it is to deal with this issue, it is quite clearly 
ICANN's.  ICANN has responsibility for administration of the DNS and 
operation of the root... I seems to recall some documents stating this 
rather clearly, as long as we ignore the details of the transition phase 
between the US government and ICANN.


>There can be regional TLDs, local TLDs, commercial and noncommercial, 
>political
>and cultural. ICANN is not in a better position than a free and open 
>marketplace
>to determine what is "meaningful" to net users. If TLDs are not needed 
>they will
>fail in the marketplace.

Good thing I anticipated the "free market" fallacy.


> > 4. Findability. Net users today use a gTLD as a means of finding. Dot com,
> > .edu, .mil are classifications and net users use classifications to find
> > things.
>Let's try to be accurate and a bit more sophisticated in our assessment of the
>role of domain names in user searches. SOME net users, in a very limited 
>set of
>circumstances, will type in a name within a TLD and hope it leads them to the

Pursuit of DNS usage in the belief that it permits "search engine" features 
is a lost cause.  Any success it enjoys now is due to very, very severe 
constraints on the actual strings being searched for, mostly consumer 
services that advertise a lot.  Try to find Brandenburg Industrial 
Services' domain name, for example.  Southwest Airlines now has 
southwest.com, but that is recent.  Guess what their original domain name was.

The DNS was not designed for searching, it was designed for mapping.  The 
technical differences between these functions are significant.  On the 
other hand, the use of alphanumeric, rather than strictly numeric, strings 
was very definitely for the purpose of permitting the strings to have an 
associated "meaning".  The benefit of this is with mnemonic use of the 
string.  That is, recalling it rather than guessing it.

Lastly, please note that the search engine function for domain names is 
really performed by the user, not the DNS...

d/

=-=-=-=-=
Dave Crocker  <dcrocker@brandenburg.com>
Brandenburg Consulting  <www.brandenburg.com>
Tel: +1.408.246.8253,  Fax: +1.408.273.6464
675 Spruce Drive,  Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA