Isoc Boss Urges Old School Iana Model For Dns Corp

Computergram International, July 31, 1998

Internet Society (ISOC) president and chief executive Don Heath says that the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) should be the source of any final document that emerges from the current debate about the future management of the domain name system. While this view is entirely consistent with ISOC's policy towards IANA, it is sure to annoy more than a few people.

ISOC and IANA began a movement in 1996 to add some generic top- level domains to the internet to supplement .com, .net and .org. This has eventually morphed into the Council of Registrars (CORE) and its Policy Oversight Committee (POC), which comprises 11 members nominated by IANA, ISOC, the Internet Architecture Board, International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the International Trademark Association (INTA). Heath feels POC, albeit expanded beyond those organizations, would make the ideal "natural core" for the names council within the new non-profit entity that will run the DNS. That is likely to be charged with issues like choosing new gTLDs and allocating them to registries, of which CORE is hoping to be one. Again, very much in the family, some would argue, although Heath does acknowledge that POC or the names council would have to include a much greater diversity of members than it does at present. Heath, a member of the steering committee of the International Forum on the White Paper (IFWP) that is likely to arrange any final wrap-up meeting, was skeptical about the practicality of such a gathering - charged, as it would be with producing a final document to present to the internet community and governments. "It sounds good," he said, but "to get such a huge, disparate group of people [together]? I don't think so." But if people agree to such a meeting, then obviously he would go along with it. Basically, Heath's message is that all the work done over the past couple of years by ISOC/CORE/POC and to some extent, IANA should not go to waste. However, he doesn't feel it was productive for IANA supporters to try and force attendees at last week's IFWP meeting in Geneva to use IANA's proposals as the basis of the discussion. He reckons IANA should listen to the IFWP meetings and then produce a document that it feels represents the views of those present.