Alternative Domains

We have suggested in our Network guide that the net is based on open, globally accepted standards. That has not stopped some enthusiasts and entrepreneurs from promoting alternative domains that use different 'roots' to those of ICANN and the IETF and that implicitly involve proprietary standards.

Establishment of alternative roots is not new. However, it is of concern because many sites with alternative names will not be readily accessible from most devices on the net (for example you will need to add a plug-in to your browser or use a particular ISP and email may not get through). And there will be confusion if an alternative site has the same name as one on the 'regular' net. The situation is analogous to someone having a telephone number that is the same as yours.

In early 2001 ICANN released a discussion draft on A Unique, Authoritative Root for the DNS, noting that

there are solid technical grounds for a single authoritative root and that ICANN should continue its commitment through established policy to such a concept and to the community-based orderly processes that surround such policy. This constitutes a public trust. ...

ICANN cannot support the concept of multiple roots except within an experimental framework, where experimentation is carefully defined. ... to change this policy would require a community consensus for the change in ICANN's character that would be entailed.

That assessment was endorsed by many of the organisation's critics and is consistent with analysis in studies such as Regulating The Global Information Society (London, Routledge 00), edited by Christopher Marsden.

In 2001 most attention has centred on Bill Gross' New.Net, which has been busy spawning generic TLDs that include dot-school, dot-shop, dot-golf, dot-arts, dot-scifi and dot-love. There's a somewhat disingenuous justification in its paper on The Role of Market-Based Principles in Domain Name Governance (PDF).

That document provoked an ICANN paper on Keeping the Internet a Reliable Global Public Resource: Response to New.net "Policy Paper" which dismisses the scheme as a "three-way technology pastiche" and comments that "New.net is a commercial entity seeking to promote a collection of domain names unilaterally established without participating in the Internet community's ICANN consensus process."

ICANN noted that the New.Net approach - anyone can set up their own alternative system - facilitates domain name conflicts across the Internet and breaks the notion of universal resolvability, the heart of the net.

Government concern was reflected in the US Federal Trade Commission's warning to alerting consumers considering registration of an alternative domain that they are "not readily found in routine Internet searches nor can be email be directed to those sites".

Business or community demand for alternative domains is unclear. There's real uncertainty about whether sufficient businesses will acquire such names in competition (or parallel with) the new ICANN TLDs.

Benjamin Edelman's paper Analysis of Registrations in the ARNI .BIZ Top-Level Domain for example severely questioned claims that New.Net competitor Atlantic Root Network (ARNI) - which offers five alternative TLDs including a dot-biz TLD in opposition to the dot-biz authorised by ICANN - had a major market share.

He concluded that there were a mere 297 registrations, far less than the many thousands often claimed. (Edelman's paper Analysis of Registrations in the Image Online Design.WEB Top-Level Domain was similarly scathing.)

All in all, it's difficult to see that the advantages of 'renegade' domains greatly outweight fundamental problems. In our discussion of ICANN's critics we noted that groups such as the Open Root Server Confederation (ORSC), New Zealand's Democratic Association of Domain Owners (DADNO) and the Individual Domain Name Owners Constituency (IDNO) have sought to establish parallel domain regimes.

Essentially, those regimes have failed because they've failed to address major policy and administrative questions. Alternative domain lobby group the Top Level Domain Association (TLDA) has largely played a blame game, attacking ICANN but offering few practical proposals. Balkanising the net is not an effective response to unhappiness about ICANN or disappointment that a bid for that organisation's recognition of a new TLD has been unsuccessful.

     other alternative domains 

Among the developers of alternative domains are:

ADNS, "owner" of the dot-earth, dot-usa and dot-z TLDs ("We were first to use them in business and commerce and under the law, this means that they belong to us")

MCSNet (apparently moribund), with a dot-biz and a dot-corp

IODesign, with dot-web

AlternativeDomains, promoting dot-ws ('web site')

Enthusiasts have also minted dot-property, dot-pole, dot-a, dot-ais, dot-archive, dot-www, dot-adult, dot-ah, dot-BUL, dot, sport, dot-wow, dot-aus, dot-aust, dot-dot, dot-liberty (of course!), dot-barter, dot-search, dot-sheesh, dot-zoo and even dot-stupid.

You too can coin as many private TLDs as you have keystrokes: like printing your own money the challenge is getting other people to accept them.






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