Re: [council] Facts about the status of ORG

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

Louis:
Thanks for transmitting the Gomes memo. It adds value to the discussion. To me, it proves that a major policy change (IANA being the [informal] policy authority at the time) took place in early 1996.

I could quibble with your interpretation of 1591 and 920 - as you could with mine - but isn't that irrelevant at this point? Whatever was the "original intent" in 1984 when ORG was created, there were less than 100 registrations in it then. 5 years have passed and 2 million new registrations have taken place since the policy was changed, completely transforming the nature of ORG. We are facing a completely different situation now. 

Changing ORG to turn it over to a non-profit, and restricting registrations in that space, may or may not be a good idea. But semantic debates about "original intent" don't contribute anything of value to that policy debate. Can we agree on that? It seems so obvious to me.

I have another important question for you. I am rather puzzled by your participation in this debate in a way that reveals a strong commitment to the policy that ORG should be run in a certain way. I am new to the Names Council, so forgive me if this is an uninformed question, but I was under the impression that domain name policies are supposed to be made by Board members, constituency members and their elected representatives. My understanding is that you are hired by ICANN as a staff lawyer to carry out the corporation's policies, not to make them. I certainly value and welcome your legal advice, but I don't think it is appropriate for you to be actively promoting a specific policy approach. Am I incorrect?

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Date:         Mon, 27 Mar 2000 11:18:56 -0500
Reply-To:     "Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes@NETSOL.COM>
Sener:       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 eamples 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