Iperdome Calls for U.S. Government
to Mediate the Domain Name System Crisis
ATLANTA, April 29, 1997 /PRNewswire/ -- The following statement was
issued today by Jay Fenello, President, Iperdome, Inc.
The Iperdome Initiative
Over the course of the last couple of weeks, the public Domain Name
System (DNS) has been rocked with several announcements that have left the
future of that system in question. To summarize
-- The IAHC proposal, once billed as the unquestioned
evolution of the public DNS system, has seen many of its quoted
supporters fail to materialize. In fact, the U.S. Government, the
European Commission, Network Solutions (NSI), prestigious Internet
organizations like the CIX and the ISP/C, as well as many of the
largest ISPs have failed to endorse the plan.
-- The National Science Foundation, which has had a supervisory and
funding role over the DNS system, has indicated that it will not renew
its existing contract with NSI, and that it no longer wishes to focus
on the commercial aspects of the Internet.
-- NSI has openly opposed the IAHC proposal, and its recently
announced plan closely mirrors the principles espoused by the Enhanced
Domain Name System (eDNS).
The result of all of this uncertainty has been a boom in support for the
eDNS (http//www.edns.net) system, a private, free market DNS system that
already offers new Top Level Domains (TLDs). As reported yesterday,
visibility of eDNS TLDs has more than doubled since the system started less
than two months ago. The issuance of new TLDs has also experienced a
dramatic rise, so much so that the eDNS Consortium is concerned that
Cybersquatting may be occurring.
The eDNS Charter has always limited the number of TLDs any one entity
could own. With the recent influx of TLD reservations, however, it
has become apparent that the Charter does not adequately define what
constitutes TLD ownership. These discussions have lead to specific
questions about eDNSgovernance, and broader questions about Internet
governance.
Since this process started, the members of the eDNS Consortium have
prepared no less than four different proposals to address these
concerns. To avoid the often mentioned complaints with the IAHC
proposal, eDNS is now trying to reconcile two conflicting and
irreconcilable goals 1) a public comment process that is
International in scope, and at least 90 days in duration; and 2) an
immediate solution to the potentially unfair allocation of TLDs.
Iperdome (http//www.iperdome.com) believes that this crisis is a direct
result of an anomaly a U.S. Government funded monopoly attempting to
convert to a private, free market governance structure without any period
of oversight or transition. For this reason, we believe that the U.S.
Government is the right authority to mediate this process, and in fact,
that it is obligated to do so.
To summarize, Iperdome would like to suggest that
-- An organization or branch of the U.S. Government provide
oversight to the public comment process, to include international
stakeholder, for a period of not less than 90 days,
-- The eDNS member organizations agree to an immediate but
temporary moratorium on the issuance of new TLDs, RAs and Registries
until this process is complete.
-- The eDNS member organizations agree to submit their proposals to
the public comment process, and take an active role in reconciling the
tough questions that lie ahead.
-- All other Internet stakeholders participate in this public
process.
In closing, Iperdome believes that this is our best chance to bring
together the many diverse goals of the Global Internet Community. We
also believe that this is our best chance to prevent any further fracturing
of the name space, and the years of prolonged legal battles that will
result if we don't.
Iperdome, Inc. is a new company formed specifically to offer Personal
Domain Names under the ".per" TLD. Iperdome was the host
for the eDNS Chartermeeting in Atlanta, and has been active in coordinating
eDNS marketing activities. Iperdome can be found at http//www.iperdome.com.
