[council] Facts about the status of ORG

["Milton Mueller" <mueller@syr.edu>]

In the discussion of the new ORG proposal, I am surprised by the inaccuracy of many comments regarding the status of the ORG Top-level domain, both within the proposed agreement, and in the press.

There is a widespread perception that ORG was "originally intended" to be restricted to non-profit organizations. That is not now and has never been true. 

ORG's status is mentioned in only two Internet RFCs, 920 (1984) and 1591 (1994). Here is the sum total of what they say about it:

RFC 920:
"ORG  =  Organization, any other domains meeting the second level requirements."

RFC 1591:
"ORG - This domain is intended as the miscellaneous TLD for organizations that didn't fit anywhere else.  Some non-government organizations may fit here.

It is indisputable that ORG was "originally intended" to be nothing more or less than a catch-all for registrants that didn't neatly fit in the other categories. The term "non-profit" never appears in any discussions. 

It is also a historical fact that during the great domain rush of 1995-6, IANA (Jon Postel) specifically authorized Network Solutions to cease attempting to discriminate between COM, NET and ORG domain applications. Although there is no written record of this decision that I know of, it has been independently confirmed by people who were working at NSI and at NSF at the time. To alter that decision would constitute a significant policy change in the current environment, given the large number of people who have registered in ORG under the assumption that it is basically an open space.