Re: [council] Facts about the status of ORG

[Louis Touton <touton@icann.org>]

Milton Mueller wrote:
> 
> 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.

Milton,

What you say is "indisputable" as a matter of history is directly
contrary to the authoritative RFC (1591) on the question, which you cite
only a few lines above your claim of indisputability.

RFC 1591 says that .org "is intended as the miscellaneous TLD for
organizations that didn't fit anywhere else."  Note the word
"organizations"--that's a lot different than all "registrants".  Note
also that it is intended only for those organizations that don't fit in
the other TLDs.  That includes .com, which RFC 1591 says "is intended
for commercial entities, that is companies."  In other words, the class
of registrants for which .org was intended, according to RFC 1591, is no
broader than non-commercial organizations (they weren't supposed to be 
edu-qualified or net-qualified, either).  In my mind, that is quite
close to non-profit organizations (though admittedly there are a lot of
"non-profit" commercial organizations these days :]], so maybe the term
"non-profit organization" should be replaced with the narrower term
"non-commercial organization").

> 
> 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.

You are correct that the .org restrictions have not been enforced since
1996.  For some background on why enforcement was stopped, see Chuck
Gomes' note from March 2000, copied at the bottom of this message.  In
the light of the lack of resources to enforce, it is gratifying that 
many people in the Internet community have acted with restraint in 
continuing to observe the stated restrictions on a voluntary basis.

I have previously advised (see
<http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/council/Arc04/msg00899.html>) the Names
Council of my opinion, as ICANN General Counsel, that the future
restrictions (if any) on .org appear to involve a significant change in
substantive policy that should, under Article VI, Section 2(c) of the
ICANN bylaws, be referred to the DNSO in the event that the VeriSign
proposal is accepted.  If the matter is referred, the DNSO will likely
want to consider a variety of views, including those of many in the
non-commercial community who whould like to see .org decommercialized. 
But (speaking personally here) I would hope that any move to once again
begin enforcing the .org restrictions is done in a manner that 
reasonably protects the legitimate expectations of the existing 
registrants.

Louis

=============================================================

Date:         Mon, 27 Mar 2000 11:18:56 -0500
Reply-To:     "Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes@NETSOL.COM>
Sender:       Owner-Domain-Policy <owner-domain-policy@internic.net>
From:         "Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes@NETSOL.COM>
Subject:      Re: network solutions new pitch.
X-To:         Michael Sondow <msondow@ICIIU.ORG>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"

The topic of RFC 1591 guidelines for .NET and .ORG registrations was
talked about many months ago, but it might be helpful to restate some 
points in that regard.

In the first part of 1996, NSI was still attempting to enforce the RFC
1591 guidelines with regard to .NET and .ORG second-level domain name
registrations. Unfortunately, checking for compliance had to be done
manually, thereby making the response time much slower.  This was
compounded by the rapid growth of .NET and .ORG registrations.  In 
addition, we found this: in attempting to ensure compliance with the 
guidelines, we found ourselves penalizing those who were honest and 
rewarding those who were willing to lie.  If someone said they were 
an Internet service provider, we took their word for it, 
understanding that the definition of an Internet service provider was 
becoming increasingly blurred and that it would be extremely 
difficult to investigate claims made by applicants.  A similar problem 
existed with .ORG, determining whether or not an organization was
not-for-profit.

In light of these issues, we consulted with the IANA (Jon Postel).  Jon
specifically recommended that we stop screening for compliance and
instead rely on registrants to choose the appropriate TLD.  We then 
followed Jon's recommendation.

The point here is not to blame the change on Jon but rather to
communicate that it was not a unilateral decision by NSI.  The 
decision was made in consultation with the IANA and was made to deal 
with specific problems experienced when implementing the RFC 1591 
guidelines.  As others have pointed out, the Internet has changed 
drastically since RFC 1591 was written.  The changes related to 
.NET and .ORG domain name registrations are examples of dealing 
with some of those changes.

To date, NSI still attempts to enforce RFC 1591 guidelines with regard
to .EDU registrations.  That has become increasingly difficult as the
number of registrations have grown.  Moreover, registrants are 
typically very dissatisfied with the response times because the 
requests have to be processed manually.  Fortunately, the number 
of .EDU  second-level registrations still does not come close to the 
number of .NET and .ORG registrations in 1996.

Chuck Gomes