Re: [ga] Analysis of Atlantic Root .BIZ Registrations to Date

["Ben Edelman" <edelman@law.harvard.edu>]

Leah,

I read your response (as posted at
<http://bcis.law.harvard.edu/webboard/wbpx.dll/read?262,45> and referenced
in a prior message to the GA list) and am pleased to discuss these matters
in hopes of better understanding and better documenting the situation here.

For the moment, I'd like to put aside questions of data privacy, of
motivation, and of consultation to focus on the questions that were the
motivation for my research.  In particular, I remain most interested in
understanding how many registrations ARNI in fact had on various dates, and
from how many distinct registrants.


I understand you to have noted in your third and fourth paragraphs that,
prior to October 2000, registrations were accepted in such a way that the
current Whois system shows false creation dates.  (Namely, you said that it
shows dates on or after October 23, 2000 for domains in fact registered
before that time.)

Is this anomaly limited to the 286 registrations completed on October 23
through 26, as shown on
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/edelman/dotbiz/sld-regs-byday.asp>?
That is, by the end of October 26, was the system fully caught up, such that
incoming registrations were properly and immediately included in Whois,
complete with accurate registration dates?  (I notice that many registration
were made on each of those four days, but that those days were followed by a
string of few- and zero-registration days.)  If so, I believe my by-day
statistics are accurate beginning on October 27.


In addition to understanding how many registration were in place on each
date, I think I and others would like to understand how many distinct
registrants had registered domains in the ARNI .BIZ TLD as of various dates.
In your third paragraph, you report that your publicly-accessible Whois data
was and remains inaccurate -- that it misattributes domains to the ARNI .BIZ
Registry that are in fact held for others at their specific request.  I
don't immediately have any basis for objectively verifying that claim within
the context of publicly-accessible information in your DNS and Whois
servers, so I set out to review the web sites available at the 189 current
ARNI .BIZ TLDs registered to ARNI itself.  Unfortunately, however, only five
of these TLDs had operating web servers that I was able to reach via
standard HTTP at the addresses I tried (http://www.sld.biz and
http://sld.biz for each of the 189 SLDs).  Can you say more about how many
of these 189 (or of the 178 ARNI-registered SLDs registered on or before
November 15, 2000) were registered for ARNI's own use, as against at the
specific request of ARNI customers?  As I look through the list at
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/edelman/dotbiz/pagetitles-ARNI-register
ed-SLDs.asp>, I do see a lot of generic domains on that list -- cars.biz,
banking.biz, etc.  Folks on this list and elsewhere might be interested to
know what proportion of these domains were registered for use by ARNI versus
for an ARNI customer.

Also, did customers request this privacy (i.e. the absence of their name in
your Whois server) (as a few people have suggested to me in private emails)?
Or the registration listings were only transferred to ARNI (for listing in
Whois, at least) for administrative convenience (as you say in the third
paragraph of your message of yesterday)?

Can you say more about how customers learned about and requested your .BIZ
services as early as May of 2000 (as you say they did in paragraph three of
your message)?  Whois seems to reflect that you registered biztld.net on
August 19, 2000, and I understand that to be the primary venue within the
ICANN/USG root in which you advertise ARNI's .BIZ services.

Finally, you say (in paragraph eight of your message) that this anomaly of
Whois data presentation will be corrected with the second version of POSSR.
Do you have any information about when that will be available?  To the
extent that the current ARNI .BIZ Whois data is known to be inaccurate, I'm
sure you -- and especially your customers -- are anxious to get this fixed!



Two quick nonsubstantive thoughts:

1.) You say that you believe my results to be subjective "because of
assumptions made of start dates and methods of registration."  In fact, I
believe (and hope!) that my methods and my assumptions are both
clearly-stated on <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/edelman/dotbiz/>.
For example, in each instance when I draw data from the ARNI .BIZ Whois
server, I say so; thus, it seems to me that most readers would rightly
conclude that if the ARNI .BIZ Whois server provides me with data that is in
error or is misleading in some way, these errors would flow through to my
research findings.  If I have omitted any key assumptions from my
explanation of methodology on that page, I'd be pleased to make appropriate
revisions; I'll happily accept such comments via private email or on this
list, as folks prefer.

2.) You say that you are disappointed to see this study coming "from
Berkman."  I want to be clear that the study is my own.  It has not been
approved or endorsed by the Berkman Center; I post it on the Berkman
Center's web server thanks to my ongoing affiliation with the Berkman
Center, but that does not mean that the Center endorses my findings in any
institutional sense.  For more information about the Berkman Center's
relationship with ICANN, see the Berkman Center-ICANN FAQ as posted at
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/bcisfaq>.



Regards,


Ben Edelman





"L Gallegos" <jandl@jandl.com> wrote on ga@dnso.org

> I posted a response on their web board.
> http://bcis.law.harvard.edu/webboard/wbpx.dll/read?262,45
>
> The "research" is misleading due to their assumption that the
> registry did not exist prior to the formal launch of the automated
> registration system.  Oh well.  No one contacted us to obtain
> facts.  No surprise.
>
> Leah
>
>
> On 19 Jun 2001, at 20:50, Jefsey Morfin wrote:
>
> > Dear Ben,
> > I started reading your posted document
> > <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/edelman/dotbiz>. I am blocked at
> > the first phrase which is wrong by ommission.
> >
> > You say
> > "As part of its obligations under itsMemorandum of Understanding with
> > the U.S. Department of Commerce, ICANN coordinates policies for
> > determing the addition of new top-level domains to the Internet's DNS
> > root system".
> >
> > This is inexact. What is true is:
> > "As part of its obligations under itsMemorandum of Understanding with
> > the U.S. Department of Commerce, ICANN coordinates policies for
> > determing the addition of new top-level domains to the USG Internet's
> > DNS root system".
> >
> > You cannot donate or delegate something you do not have. The DNS
> > system is a set of different programs by different producers - mostly
> > under GNU licences - used by millions of people throughout the world,
> > many of who never heard and will never hear about the iCANN and the
> > DoC. It uses a part of the humanity name space (the DNS name space the
> > GAC, the law of several countries declared to be own by no one and non
> > trade markable at TLD level - its roots). It only helps them setting
> > up who is authoritative on heir own machine. You may push Eric out of
> > this list, no one will oblige him to use the iCANN root if he says no.
> >
> > The internet belongs to no one. If the USA have been a leading land,
> > the historic investors have been many universities of different
> > countries, IBM, MCI, public services and agencies from scores of
> > countries. ARPANet was certainly be part of it, as Cyclades, Euronet
> > and others. Technically, ask old timers who did what between Roberts
> > and Westler in the USA, Pouzin in France ...  The web has been
> > developped at the European Nuclear Center (CERN) by an English.
> > Deployment has been shared and paid by many individuals and pioneers.
> > This mailing list is currently sponsored bythe AFNIC, etc... etc...
> > Show me the USG contract for the Bind system.
> >
> > The rest of your text is historical. Just five remarks.
> >
> > - The number of DNs is not related to the importance of the usership.
> > One the most used TLD is ".us".
> >
> > - The routing conflicts are not constested by anyone serious. What is
> > surprising is that the BoD has decided not to warn officialy the DoC.
> > Bearing full legal and financial resposnibility.
> >
> > - your publishing of the nominative biz list is in contravention with
> > privacy laws of many countries and as such a real argument against
> > iCANN supporters.
> >
> > - the number of demonstrated DNs is far higher than many ccTLDs
> > enjoying full respect from he iCANN.
> >
> > - the increase you show demonstrates that ARNI is here to stay and
> > that many people now think using it is a reasonable move, either
> > because it will survive NeuLevel which has far higher operating costs
> > due to the iCANN constraints and will not be able to cope with a long
> > stale period after the first collisions hit the press. So either .biz
> > DNs by ARNI will be the winers or NewLevel will have to compromise and
> > to buy them. ANyway it is good business to buy from Leah. I understand
> > many are understanding that right now..
> >
> > Jefsey
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 19:51 19/06/01, Ben Edelman said:
> > >I've heard discussion -- on this list, at ICANN meetings, and
> > >elsewhere -- on the subject of a possible conflict in the DNS root
> > >between the NeuLevel .BIZ (which the ICANN Board of Directors
> > >selected in its November 16, 2000 Board Meeting; see
> > ><http://www.neulevel.com>) and an existing .BIZ TLD operated by the
> > >Atlantic Root Network (<http://www.biztld.net>).
> > >
> > >I've heard much discussion about the possible and theoretical
> > >problems raised by such conflicts, but there seemed to me significant
> > >empirical questions here.  For example, I wondered: Just how many
> > >registrations are in the Atlantic Root Network's .BIZ?  When were
> > >those registrations made?
> > >
> > >Accordingly, I have set out to answer these questions and others
> > >using data freely available over the Internet.  My work in progress
> > >is posted at <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/edelman/dotbiz>.  I
> > >look forward to feedback from others interested in these questions,
> > >and to continued discussion on the subject.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >Ben Edelman
> > >Berkman Center for Internet & Society
> > >Harvard Law School
> > >
> > >--
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> > >("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
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> >
>
>
> ~ Leah G ~
> --
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