Single Registrant TLD

[tlhackque]

Marc,

I thought I said that.  It is indeed trivial to run BIND as a TLD server - at a 
modest service level.  Then the issue is not for the end user - it's for the 
network infrastructure.  But, if you must, as a condition of being a TLD owner, 
meet some arbitrary service standard, it does get arbitrarily expensive.  


The issue for the root servers is that if 4 billion people all get their own 
TLDs, the root servers' workload becomes, er, challenging.  Originally, all that 
they had to do was to serve the records for the handful of TLDs.  High request 
rate (of course, it wasn't supposed to be high, but far too many client 
resolvers are brain dead and start at the root without caching.).  But a very 
small dataset.  And so the idea was to have a distributed database with 
distributed workloads.  And it worked.   However, scaling the root server 
infrastructure to even 10s of thousands of TLDs is non-trivial.  And one 
question is who bears that expense?

Because this is a scary thought (and that's a precise technical term), the 
thought process seems to be to say "we really don't want to do this, but if we 
make it expensive enough, we'll reduce the size of the problem.  After all, how 
many people can afford ~USD1M to implement a robust TLD domain".  Let's not 
argue about the amount - but do realize that what is being talked about will 
come with substantial bills beyond the (outrageous) application fee.  Lawyers to 
fight the squabbles over who gets what name.  And, if some have their way, the 
notion that all TLDs have equivalent service levels - that's what would drive 
the expense of running your own.  Of course, the big players expect/hope 
that small fry will pay them to host TLDs, just as happens now with second and 
third level domain names.  And they will charge what the market will bear.

I believe that the money and some of the proposed standards - technical, service 
levels, and applicant background - are really intended to create significant 
barriers to entry.  Some of these are for technical reasons - this is a bad 
thing, but it will happen.  So use price to limit the damage.  Others are for 
commercial reasons - if you can raise the perceived value, there's money to be 
extracted.  So, a big player is motivated to set standards that keep people with 
shallower pockets out of the business.  And then there are the other agendas - 
various kinds of censorship.

Where the money goes is interesting.  But from the point of view of this group, 
perhaps not as interesting as the fact that as non-commercial users, we (mostly) 
can't afford to participate.

In fact, as Avri pointed out, even we are divided.  To even play, I'd have to 
register or incorporate my family as an organization even to apply.  Individuals 
are locked-out.  As usual.  Even for a single user TLD.  There's no reasonable 
basis for this - after all, a corporation is merely a legal construct that 
enables a group to be 'a person' in the eyes of the law.  It's goal is to 
disassociate its owners from responsibility for its actions.  (OK, this is 
oversimplified - but essentially true.  Corporations exist so that owners aren't 
personally bankrupted when a company fails; aren't personally liable when a 
product has a defect, etc.)  So this requirement also creates a barrier to 
entry.  It isn't cheap to create - and especially maintain - a 
corporate/registerd org structure.  Yet those who  argue for accountability, 
seem to think that this requirement is OK.

I don't get it.  There's nothing more accountable than a real live person - you 
can find them, talk to them, jail them.  But about all you can do to a 
corporation is fine it - if you can find it.  The people doing bad things are 
pretty well protected.  So if we want accountability, we should be arguing that 
only named individuals (perhaps in countries with functional legal systems and 
extradition agreements - if we can define functioning) should be allowed to own 
TLDs.  The plan that only non-people (corporations) are suitable seems 
downside-up.  [I'm not saying that corporations are intrinsically bad, just that 
they are less accountable in this context.]

Perhaps one take-away from all of this is that this group needs to start 
thinking about this interests of individuals, not just non-commercial 
organizations.  After all, the claim is that the group represents individuals as 
non-commercial interests.  (Or I wouldn't have joined.)

The TLD issue may not be the best vehicle for improving our focus on the 
interests of individuals - but it does happen to be the one under discussion.

Perhaps a good litmus test for our deliberations and postions would be "what 
would this mean / how would this apply to yourfamily.net?"
---------------------------------------------------------
This communication may not represent my employer's views,
if any, on the matters discussed. 



----- Original Message ----
From: Marc Perkel <marc at CHURCHOFREALITY.ORG>
To: NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Sent: Wed, July 21, 2010 8:57:03 AM
Subject: Re: Single Registrant TLD

Hi Thackque,

Technically it is no more difficult to run a private TLD that any other. 
It doesn't require a separate root server. It's just a regular BIND 
entry. Technically it's amazingly simple. Setting up MYFAMILY is as easy 
as setting up MYFAMILY.NET.

The only complexity I see is in fighting over who gets what name. That's 
the part that scares me. The policy end of it. Who gets the TLD MONEY? 
How do you figure that out?

On 7/20/2010 9:16 AM, tlhackque wrote:
> I thought I would add a bit of analysis to your delusion.    So here are some 
>of
> mine:
>
> I'm not one of those institutional member.  But I think it comes down to cost.
>
> If TLDs are becoming un-scarce, why wouldn't ANYONE consider one?
>
> I have family members scattered across the globe.  If it was the same USD 
10/yr
> for
> MYFAMILY as it is for MYFAMILY.net, maybe I'd go for me at myfamily and
> www.myfamily and smtp.myfamily and ... instead of me at myfamily.net.  After all,
> .net is just a techno-geek appendage that adds no value to the end user.  (As 
>an
> engineer, I know full well what it has done for the network :-)
>
> I oppose dramatic expansion of TLDs on technical grounds.  There is no 
tangible
> benefit that justifies making a really hard  technical problem (running the 
>root
> servers) harder/more expensive.  Everyone seems to have adapted to these 
little
> appendages - and even made things like '.com' mainline chic.  (Something I 
>never
> thought I'd see when the DNS first replaced HOSTS files.)  However, that 
battle
> is lost.  So now it comes down to who can claim the intangible so-called
> benefits - and at what cost.
>
> In the past, TLDs were intentionally scarce to make the root nameservers's job
> manageable.  If MegaCorp can have a TLD, why not Microme?
>
> The other consideration has been standard of service.  TLDs have traditionally
> been held to (well, more or less) a higher level of service - meaning 
redundant
> servers, anycast addresses, geographic dispersion -- all that stuff.  This has
> been because of the impact on registrants were .COM to go dark.  But the
> discussions I've heard about seem to be trending toward not requiring this of 
a
> single registrant TLD, which actually makes sense.  It's the owner of the 
>domain
> who needs to set service standards based on his customer's needs.  In the case
> of the traditional TLDs, the end customers are so far removed from the TLD 
that
> it ought to be standarized.  But for a single registrant TLD, it's strictly an
> internal matter - it doesn't effect the stability of the net as a whole if
> MYFAMILY's nameservers are shut down when I'm on vacation.  (Of course, my
> family might have a different opinion.  But that's an internal family 
>matter...)
>
> So if it doesn't cost more, and someone wants a TLD for esthetic reasons, why
> are NC users different?
>
> But, as I said, it comes down to cost.  Non-commerical users, by and large,
> don't have deep pockets.  So the USD 300K+ fees I've seen tossed about for a 
>TLD
> application - much less a world-wide infrastructure for traditional TLD
> level-of-service - would certainly rule me out (and, I suspect most NCSG
> members.)
>
> It may be worth discussing whether price is the proper allocation function for
> this suddenly not-so-scarce resource.  It always does seem to trend against
> non-commercial interests.  The marginal cost of a TLD to the root servers is
> minimal -- but if every domain became a TLD, the total cost would be enormous 
-
> and have to be born by someone.  However, the extreme prices being proposed 
>seem
> to be aimed at ensuring allocation ONLY to the very rich.
>
>
> That said, I'm not all that anxious to add my own TLD.  If it cost 50% more 
>than
> my current domain name, I might consider it.  But not 30,000 times more.  I 
>just
> run my own family network.
>
>
> My bank balance pretty much controls which of my delusions I can entertain :-)
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> This communication may not represent my employer's views,
> if any, on the matters discussed.
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Avri Doria<avri at LTU.SE>
> To: NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> Sent: Tue, July 20, 2010 10:56:24 AM
> Subject: Single Registrant TLD
>
> Hi,
>
> Just checking.
>
> The contention by some on the VIWG has been that I am deluded when I argue 
that
> the NCSG, especially some of its institutional members have no interest in
> seeing Single Registrant TLD (.ngo for want of a better name) where the names
> could be distributed internally, without use of a registrar, to employees or
> members.
>
> Can anyone confirm my delusion?  Are their institutional members who think 
this
> sort of thing should exist - even if their name in not a famous brand?
>
> thanks
>
> a.
>
>
>
>
>