Received: by central.hub.nih.gov with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) id ; Tue, 1 Jun 1999 09:50:15 -0400 Message-ID: From: "Cruz, Miguel (OD/ORS)" To: 'Mark Hart' Cc: us-list@ntiant1.ntia.doc.gov Subject: RE: Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 09:51:27 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" On Fri, 28 May 1999, Mark Hart wrote: > 1) Why does each country in the world have to suffix web addresses for > sites from those countries with the two-letter country suffix, except the > United States? I know that there are people from other countries > registering under .com, .net, etc., but my belief is that the vast > majority of site owners in .com, .net, etc. are from the US. There are many different ways of answering that question. First of all, nobody "has to" use country code domain names. Anyone can register under .com, .org, and .net. A handful of non-US institutions have registered under .edu. If the majority of domains registered under .com etc. are from the US it's probably because that the majority of domains at that level in general are from the US. The .us domain was created to achieve symmetry with all the other CCTLDs (Country Code Top-Level Domains), but didn't really catch on domestically in the face of the more functional .gov, .com, and so on. For various reasons (national pride, lower cost in some cases, accessibility of registries in local languages), other countries found the CCTLDs to be more attractive. Meanwhile the .us domain languished without a particularly compelling structure (how many companies doing business on the web really want to localize themselves? The whole point is to reach broad markets without consideration for geography). And this leaves US outfits with no real option other than the 3-letter TLDs. At this point the federal government has declared an intention to migrate to ..fed.us over time, presumably abandoning .gov when the migration is complete (see RFC 2146). But what works for the federal government, which is a hierarchial organization, will not necessary apply to the rest of the nation's internet users. > 2) Why has the standard for naming in the .US TLD been held to > xxxxxx.LOCALITY.ST.US when most people who would search for a site by name > would not generally look to the locality, or even the state in most cases? > I would look for www.ibm.us and not for www.ibm.armonk.ny.us - although > IBM is headquartered in Armonk, NY, most people consider IBM to be a > world-class company and couldn't even find Armonk on the map. Well, a flat model (www.ibm.us) probably wouldn't scale that well in a nation with 270 million people. And given this objection to geography-based names, I really don't understand why you make the suggestion in 3) below. > 3) It would seem to me that a case could be made for sliding-scale fees to > be charged for site registration based upon the level of indirection > desired. If Acme Bricks were a tiny company in Austin, TX it would make > sense for them to register as acmebrick.austin.tx.com.us - such > registration should be quite inexpensive. A larger Acme Bricks doing > business throughout Texas could register as acmebrick.tx.com.us for a > higher fee. An interstate Acme Bricks could be acmebrick.com.us, and a > well-known international Acme Bricks as acmebrick.us - each level rise > would be accompanied by a corresponding increase in registration fees. > Think about it - if we had a scale on the order of: > > yourname.yourlocality.st.nom.us - Free > yourname.yourlocality.st.[com,net,org,...].us - Maximum $10/year > yourname.st.[com,net.org,...].us - Maximum $100/year > yourname.[com,net,org,...].us - Maximum $1000/year > yourname.us - *Minimum* $10K/year Other than achieving a form of price discrimination, I don't really see many benefits. The less you pay, the more information is included in your domain name? Or is the location info just to "punish" low fee payers by forcing their visitors and correspondents to type some extranneous text? > Is anyone considering such a structure? Could the current .com, .net, > .org system be remapped into (as applicable) the .US domain? Lock, stock, and barrel? Nope. Far too many international registrations. Far too much printed material with URLs and email addresses on it (the cost to the US economy would probably be in the billions. Who would pay? Registrants? Good luck getting any support from them in that case). > Does the rest of the world even care that we have pre-empted the > non-nationalized top level domains for our own use? With the exception of .edu, .gov, and .mil, I don't see how you could say that is the case. The rest of the world is perfectly welcome to use the remaining domains, and a quick peek at a random sampling of registrations will show that they are taking full advantage of it. miguel . Received: by central.hub.nih.gov with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) id ; Tue, 1 Jun 1999 09:57:56 -0400 Message-ID: From: "Cruz, Miguel (OD/ORS)" To: "'us-list@ntiant1.ntia.doc.gov'" Subject: Re: Automated .US Registration Site Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 09:58:59 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" On Fri 28 May 1999, Jim Williams wrote: > I notice in reading the Domain Overview that not only is it > permissible to charge for .us domain name service, there is > no preference given to delegates willing to provide the > service at no charge. It seems to me that someone who is > able to demonstrate technical competence and good faith, and > who is willing to provide domain registrations at no cost to > the client should be permitted to claim delegation away from > someone who is charging a fee even if the governing locality > has a contract with the entity charging said fee. That is, > there should be a presumption of free domain names and > charging for domain names should only happen when no one is > willing to do it for free. At first glance that seems to be an excellent suggestion. There are things to be worked out as far as stability and transitions, but in general that would seem very much in the spirit of the current .us documents. I have worked with various non-profits who were put off registering under .us because of the costs involved (every cost can be significant for a small community group). In some of these cases there were volunteers perfectly willing to host the domain records, and no other registrations under the city in question (which seemed to have been registered for motivation very similar to any other domain name speculation). In other words, people were kept from using the .us domain for its intended purpose, while the resource languished unused instead. miguel . Received: by eagle.petc.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) id ; Tue, 1 Jun 1999 07:00:06 -0700 Message-ID: <7170C49A54BAD211AF1800805FBEB8503CCBF5@eagle.petc.com> From: Mark Hart To: "'Cruz, Miguel (OD/ORS)'" Cc: "'us-list@ntiant1.ntia.doc.gov'" Subject: RE: Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 06:59:59 -0700 Importance: high X-Priority: 1 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Thanks for your response. I have been asking these questions of many others, and this is the first time I've had some reasonable answers. I will continue to monitor this list with great interest! Mark M. Hart -----Original Message----- From: Cruz, Miguel (OD/ORS) [mailto:cruzm@ors.od.nih.gov] Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 1999 06.51 To: 'Mark Hart' Cc: us-list@ntiant1.ntia.doc.gov Subject: RE: On Fri, 28 May 1999, Mark Hart wrote: > 1) Why does each country in the world have to suffix web addresses for > sites from those countries with the two-letter country suffix, except the > United States? I know that there are people from other countries > registering under .com, .net, etc., but my belief is that the vast > majority of site owners in .com, .net, etc. are from the US. There are many different ways of answering that question. First of all, nobody "has to" use country code domain names. Anyone can register under .com, .org, and .net. A handful of non-US institutions have registered under .edu. If the majority of domains registered under .com etc. are from the US it's probably because that the majority of domains at that level in general are from the US. The .us domain was created to achieve symmetry with all the other CCTLDs (Country Code Top-Level Domains), but didn't really catch on domestically in the face of the more functional .gov, .com, and so on. For various reasons (national pride, lower cost in some cases, accessibility of registries in local languages), other countries found the CCTLDs to be more attractive. Meanwhile the .us domain languished without a particularly compelling structure (how many companies doing business on the web really want to localize themselves? The whole point is to reach broad markets without consideration for geography). And this leaves US outfits with no real option other than the 3-letter TLDs. At this point the federal government has declared an intention to migrate to ..fed.us over time, presumably abandoning .gov when the migration is complete (see RFC 2146). But what works for the federal government, which is a hierarchial organization, will not necessary apply to the rest of the nation's internet users. > 2) Why has the standard for naming in the .US TLD been held to > xxxxxx.LOCALITY.ST.US when most people who would search for a site by name > would not generally look to the locality, or even the state in most cases? > I would look for www.ibm.us and not for www.ibm.armonk.ny.us - although > IBM is headquartered in Armonk, NY, most people consider IBM to be a > world-class company and couldn't even find Armonk on the map. Well, a flat model (www.ibm.us) probably wouldn't scale that well in a nation with 270 million people. And given this objection to geography-based names, I really don't understand why you make the suggestion in 3) below. > 3) It would seem to me that a case could be made for sliding-scale fees to > be charged for site registration based upon the level of indirection > desired. If Acme Bricks were a tiny company in Austin, TX it would make > sense for them to register as acmebrick.austin.tx.com.us - such > registration should be quite inexpensive. A larger Acme Bricks doing > business throughout Texas could register as acmebrick.tx.com.us for a > higher fee. An interstate Acme Bricks could be acmebrick.com.us, and a > well-known international Acme Bricks as acmebrick.us - each level rise > would be accompanied by a corresponding increase in registration fees. > Think about it - if we had a scale on the order of: > > yourname.yourlocality.st.nom.us - Free > yourname.yourlocality.st.[com,net,org,...].us - Maximum $10/year > yourname.st.[com,net.org,...].us - Maximum $100/year > yourname.[com,net,org,...].us - Maximum $1000/year > yourname.us - *Minimum* $10K/year Other than achieving a form of price discrimination, I don't really see many benefits. The less you pay, the more information is included in your domain name? Or is the location info just to "punish" low fee payers by forcing their visitors and correspondents to type some extranneous text? > Is anyone considering such a structure? Could the current .com, .net, > .org system be remapped into (as applicable) the .US domain? Lock, stock, and barrel? Nope. Far too many international registrations. Far too much printed material with URLs and email addresses on it (the cost to the US economy would probably be in the billions. Who would pay? Registrants? Good luck getting any support from them in that case). > Does the rest of the world even care that we have pre-empted the > non-nationalized top level domains for our own use? With the exception of .edu, .gov, and .mil, I don't see how you could say that is the case. The rest of the world is perfectly welcome to use the remaining domains, and a quick peek at a random sampling of registrations will show that they are taking full advantage of it. miguel . Received: from blizzard.odi.com (blizzard [198.3.23.25]) by mineshaft.odi.com (8.8.8/EX3.5) with ESMTP id KAA22040 for ; Tue, 1 Jun 1999 10:40:42 -0400 (EDT) Received: from odi.com (sphere [198.3.17.196]) by blizzard.odi.com (8.8.8/IN3.4) with ESMTP id KAA24476 for ; Tue, 1 Jun 1999 10:41:45 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <3753F129.9A72C42A@odi.com> Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 10:41:45 -0400 From: Jim Williams Organization: Object Design, 25 Mall Rd, Burlington, MA 01803 - 617-674-5355 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.06 [en] (WinNT; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "'us-list@ntiant1.ntia.doc.gov'" Subject: Re: Automated .US Registration Site References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cruz, Miguel (OD/ORS) wrote: > > On Fri 28 May 1999, Jim Williams wrote: > > I notice in reading the Domain Overview that not only is it > > permissible to charge for .us domain name service, there is > > no preference given to delegates willing to provide the > > service at no charge. It seems to me that someone who is > > able to demonstrate technical competence and good faith, and > > who is willing to provide domain registrations at no cost to > > the client should be permitted to claim delegation away from > > someone who is charging a fee even if the governing locality > > has a contract with the entity charging said fee. That is, > > there should be a presumption of free domain names and > > charging for domain names should only happen when no one is > > willing to do it for free. > > At first glance that seems to be an excellent suggestion. There are > things to be worked out as far as stability and transitions, but in > general that would seem very much in the spirit of the current .us > documents. > > I have worked with various non-profits who were put off registering > under .us because of the costs involved (every cost can be significant > for a small community group). In some of these cases there were > volunteers perfectly willing to host the domain records, and no other > registrations under the city in question (which seemed to have been > registered for motivation very similar to any other domain name > speculation). In other words, people were kept from using the .us > domain for its intended purpose, while the resource languished unused > instead. > > miguel Given that the delegation for Medford, MA is hostmaster@ihtfp.org and that www.ihtfp.org leads right into M.I.T. I suspect the motivation can be even less than speculation. (ihtfp is a well known acronym for "I Hate This F___ing Place". At least it's well known at M.I.T.) Jim. . Received: (qmail 21139 invoked from network); 1 Jun 1999 15:02:04 -0000 Received: from gutso.foxharp.boston.ma.us (192.168.111.9) by firethorn.foxharp.boston.ma.us with SMTP; 1 Jun 1999 15:02:04 -0000 Received: (qmail 11566 invoked from network); 1 Jun 1999 15:01:55 -0000 Received: from localhost (HELO foxharp) (127.0.0.1) by localhost with SMTP; 1 Jun 1999 15:01:55 -0000 To: "'us-list@ntiant1.ntia.doc.gov'" From: pgf-usdom@foxharp.boston.ma.us Subject: Re: Automated .US Registration Site In-reply-to: cruzm's message of Tue, 01 Jun 1999 09:58:59 -0400. Reply-to: pgf-usdom@foxharp.boston.ma.us MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <11560.928249315.1@foxharp.boston.ma.us> Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 11:01:55 -0400 Message-ID: <11562.928249315@foxharp.boston.ma.us> Sender: pgf@foxharp.boston.ma.us > > service at no charge. It seems to me that someone who is > > able to demonstrate technical competence and good faith, and > > who is willing to provide domain registrations at no cost to > > the client should be permitted to claim delegation away from > > someone who is charging a fee even if the governing locality ... > At first glance that seems to be an excellent suggestion. There are wouldn't this simply be a special case of a "lowest cost provider" bidding strategy? i.e. for any given domain, someone that will provide some minimal level of service for the lowest cost to the consumer should get to provide it. paul =--------------------- paul fox, pgf@foxharp.boston.ma.us (arlington, ma, where it's 82.0 degrees) . Received: from blizzard.odi.com (blizzard [198.3.23.25]) by mineshaft.odi.com (8.8.8/EX3.5) with ESMTP id LAA23013 for ; Tue, 1 Jun 1999 11:10:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: from odi.com (sphere [198.3.17.196]) by blizzard.odi.com (8.8.8/IN3.4) with ESMTP id LAA06816 for ; Tue, 1 Jun 1999 11:11:47 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <3753F830.9207BB1F@odi.com> Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 11:11:44 -0400 From: Jim Williams Organization: Object Design, 25 Mall Rd, Burlington, MA 01803 - 617-674-5355 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.06 [en] (WinNT; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "'us-list@ntiant1.ntia.doc.gov'" Subject: Re: Automated .US Registration Site References: <11562.928249315@foxharp.boston.ma.us> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit pgf-usdom@foxharp.boston.ma.us wrote: > > > > service at no charge. It seems to me that someone who is > > > able to demonstrate technical competence and good faith, and > > > who is willing to provide domain registrations at no cost to > > > the client should be permitted to claim delegation away from > > > someone who is charging a fee even if the governing locality > ... > > At first glance that seems to be an excellent suggestion. There are > > wouldn't this simply be a special case of a "lowest cost provider" > bidding strategy? i.e. for any given domain, someone that will provide > some minimal level of service for the lowest cost to the consumer should > get to provide it. > > paul > =--------------------- > paul fox, pgf@foxharp.boston.ma.us (arlington, ma, where it's 82.0 degrees) This seems correct. My point had more to do with the issue of the governing locality -- not that I'd consider Medford officials corrupt or anything. Jim. (Is that why it's hot in my Burlington office?) .