By David McGuire
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer Monday, November 11, 2002; 8:01 AM
Internet users could get three new alternatives to "dot-com" next year, but those alternatives likely will be reserved for specific online communities.
Stuart Lynn, president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers (ICANN), said he will recommend this week the creation of three new domains to exist alongside dot-com, dot-net, dot-org and other domains in the Internet's addressing system.
Lynn said he will recommend that ICANN only accept applications for domains targeted at specific audiences rather than more general-interest domains like dot-com. ICANN's board of directors could vote on the plan as early as December, clearing the way for the domains to be launched before the end of 2003, Lynn said.
ICANN manages the Internet's global Domain Name System (DNS) under
agreements with the U.S. government, and decides what address suffixes
are in the system. The nonprofit organization also helps determine prices and
policies for domain names.
Any new domains would join seven expansion domains that ICANN approved in November 2000, including dot-info, dot-biz and dot-museum. While ICANN must evaluate the success of those relatively new domains, Lynn said he believes it would be worthwhile to create three new "sponsored" domains.
While "unsponsored" domains like dot-com, dot-org and dot-net are open to all potential registrants, sponsored domains like "dot-museum" and "dot-coop" are reserved for specific audiences. Dot-museum is the exclusive domain of registered museums, and dot-coop is reserved for employee-owned co-ops.
By limiting its selection to sponsored domains, which operate on a smaller scale and usually are noncommercial, ICANN may be able to avoid the gold rush environment that characterized the November 2000 selection process, Lynn said.
"The appeal is that it is a way of moving forward that is not going to raise large obstacles," Lynn said. "My belief is that we can do it relatively quickly, relatively smoothly."
At least one ICANN board member disagrees with Lynn's plan to encourage only sponsored domain names.
"Stuart Lynn is making a down-and-out decision about who can be in business on the Internet and who cannot," said board member and longtime ICANN critic Karl Auerbach. Auerbach said he believes there is no obstacle to creating new, unsponsored domains.
Auerbach has long advocated opening the DNS to as many new domains as the market will sustain. By tightly restricting the number of domains added to the system, Auerbach argues that ICANN has created artificial scarcity and kowtowed to businesses that sell existing domains. In addition, Auerbach charges that ICANN is siding with intellectual property interests who fear that the infusion of large numbers of Internet domains could jeopardize trademarks.
Of the 19 directors on ICANN's controlling board, five -- including Auerbach -- were elected by Internet users to serve as their voice in Internet management.
ICANN recently decided to abandon online elections in favor of a more streamlined governance structure, which means that Auerbach and the four board members elected by Internet users will not be replaced.
Critics of that decision, which took a step closer to finalization at an ICANN meeting in Shanghai last week, say that it will cut the average Internet user out of important decisions affecting the Web.
ICANN will select any new domains based on input from the public, Lynn said.
