All ‘sides’ in the internet domain name system reform were claiming yesterday that a mood of conciliation has broken out over the various proposals for reform following Tuesday’s House Committee hearing in Washington DC. Although nobody has actually shifted position, compromise is what the green paper process is supposed to bring about, so it would be no surprise to see a shifting of positions over the next few weeks. The House Science Committee heard from presidential adviser and green paper co-author Ira Magaziner, who told the committee he would have a revised version of the paper (probably be a ‘white paper’ next time round) in about a month-to-six-weeks’ time. He said a series of public meetings on the issue would be held soon, though no details of dates or locations were forthcoming from his office. Magaziner said the government received about 650 comments on the green paper’s proposals, which have not been read yet. The hearing appeared to have been organized partly at the behest of IDT Corp’s president, Jim Courter, who also testified. Courter was there representing the Council of Registrars (CORE), of which IDT is a member; Courter himself used to be a member of Congress, but has never represented CORE in public before. He played up his Congressional experience, addressing the committee as former colleagues. Courter referred to the green paper as the Magaziner plan, which was interpreted by observers as a slightly hostile gesture, with Magaziner sitting next to him. Finally, Courter offered Magaziner the chance to make a deal with CORE, whereby Magaziner, CORE and committee chairman Charles ‘Chip’ Pickering get together and work out a proposal. Courter and Magaziner were locked in conversation at the end of the hearing, but Magaziner emphasized that CORE was only one of many registry groups involved in the process, and no one group could be favored over another. Courter said to us yesterday there is no reason why we can’t get real competition in the registrar business.
Magaziner also said that five new top-level domain names was not a cap, and more could be added after the six month transition period that started yesterday and ends September 30. On the issue of a US-based non-profit organization running the system, Magaziner seems to have made some progress in convincing some international parties that the US will not be running rough- shod over every other country’s needs. He said that although the non-profit corporation will be based in the US, it doesn’t mean that only US laws will be applicable to it; the laws of other countries will apply when a case concerns them. Magaziner has just spent two weeks in Europe, where he had apparently placated some European governments. Magaziner also said US antitrust laws was especially valuable in providing oversight or private sector operations – under the government plans, the registries and registrars would both be for-profit private sector companies. Chairman Pickering also noted that substantial attention should be paid to international involvement. Barbara Dooley, executive director of the Commercial Internet Exchange Association (CIX), which represent the interests of ISPs, said that although CIX largely supports the green paper, the .us country-specific top-level domain should be overhauled and used more extensively and she hoped that no-one group should dominate on the board of the non-profit corporation. Bob Kahn, who co-invented TCP/IP with Vint Cerf in the 1970s and is now president of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives, reiterated his oft-stated position that the US government must provide oversight as a means of recovery from failure of the private sector, and Kahn also stressed that there is no real crisis at the moment with the DNS and time should be taken to find the best solution.
