[council] Filtering of New Top Level Domains By the ISPs
All,
Please see the
following statement from the gTLD Registry Constituency on the "Filtering of New
Top Level Domains By the ISP's". Please let us know if you have any
questions or comments and how best we can work together to ensure that in the
future new generic top-level domains (both sponsored and unsponsored) do
not have the same difficulties that have been encountered by many of the
registries chosen in November, 2000.
A word version of
the below is also provided.
Jeffrey J.
Neuman
Chair, gTLD
Registries Constituency
*****************************************************************FILTERING OF
NEW TOP LEVEL DOMAINS
BY
THE ISP's
Since new domain names (DNS)
were first introduced, top-level domains (both gTLDs and ccTLDs) have been
predominantly two or three characters.
Although one four letter TLD was initially created (.arpa), such domain
has not been in use by the general public.
Prior to November 2000, the list of valid TLDs very seldom changed, and
only a few ccTLDs were added to the list, including Palestine (.ps) and
Afghanistan (.af). FILTERING
NEW TOP LEVEL DOMAINS
In November 2000, however,
seven new TLDs were approved by ICANN and subsequently added to the root. These included several TLDs with 4 or
more characters (.aero, .coop, .info, .name, and .museum). Although the implementation of these new
TLDs began in 2001, they found considerable barriers for being accepted by most
ISPs worldwide. Even several of the
three letter new TLDs, including .biz, ran into some difficulty in being
accepted by many of the world's leading ISPs. Some ISPs are using incomplete domain name lists for
filtering e-mail and URL addresses[1] and it is obvious
their systems that filter top-level domain names do not check and update the
current validation list of TLDs ("generic" and country code-related) published
by IANA at http://www.iana.org/domain-names.htm. This is critical because when an incomplete list is
used, new TLDs will not be recognized as valid domains and the system may try to
reach them via different domains.
For example, "entity.xxxx" is a valid name because it is included in the
IANA list; however, if ISPs do not recognize "xxxx." as a valid TLD, this is
turned into "entity.xxxx.com" and http://www.entity.xxxx.com" instead (and then
fails or finds the wrong host).
ICANN
PLANS According to several recent
reports, ICANN intends to expand the list of new gTLDs. Such expansion may take place at regular
intervals. Thus, it is essential that ICANN and its constituencies, in
particularly the ISPs, are aware that at present this problem exists and, as a
result, new gTLDs are not able to function adequately. New potential registry
operators should be aware that this barrier exists and ICANN should consider
coordinating these issues more closely.
Global acceptance of all valid domain names is an integral part of
maintaining Internet stability. CONCLUSION
It
is important to note: ·
New TLDs, added to the TLD list
in Nov 2000, are not yet globally accepted by ISPs, web hosts and e-commerce
sites. ·
Security techniques, which have
been designed to protect the DNS system, are creating barriers for
non-accessibility (acting as filters). ·
ISPs, when rejecting valid forms
of domain names, email addresses or URLs, effectively deny service to the user
of those entities or cyber communities. ·
ICANN seeks to extend new TLDs to
the current TLD list despite the above-described problem. ·
New potential TLDs should be made
aware of this problem before submitting applications at the next
opening. RECOMMENDATIONS As this problem is causing
economical hardship to sponsors, registry operators and consumers, we recommend
that the ISP Constituency along with the ICANN community collaborate more
closely to minimize these problems. [1] Detailed description of the filtering issue is contained in a new I-D published here (http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-klensin-name-filters-00.txt). ISPStatement.FilteringNewTLDs.052803.doc |