Editor's Note: Nao Matsukata is senior policy adviser to the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse (CADNA) and to Alston & Bird, LLP.
By Nao Matsukata – Special to CNN
Decisions made this week in the meeting rooms of a San Francisco hotel could dramatically change how the world experiences the internet.
Few of us realize that many important decisions about Web policy and governance are under the control of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a nonprofit located in California.
What gives this organization the right to determine so much about internet policy and regulation? Who is it accountable to, and who empowered it in the first place?
ICANN was created in 1998 by the Clinton administration to take the reins of internet regulation from the U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Research Products Agency and Jon Postel, a professor who was single-handedly keeping track of all internet addresses from his office at the University of Southern California.
Today, for all practical purposes, ICANN serves as the governing agency of the Web. And if ICANN has its way this week, internet users will soon be navigating through a substantially more complex and treacherous internet.
In a dramatic change of internet policy, ICANN has proposed to approve and implement the rollout of more than 400 new top-level domains within the next few months. Top-level domains are what you see to the right of the dot, such as “com” or “org.”
Right now, there are 21 top-level domains. If ICANN’s new policy is implemented, we will see top-level domains such as .car, .newyorkcity, .hotels and hundreds more. Internet real estate will grow exponentially, creating a more complex experience for every user.
ICANN’s board justifies this decision by citing the need for greater competition in the domain-name marketplace. ICANN argues that expanding the top-level domain space will encourage greater innovation and choice on the internet.
Those in the business of making money by selling domain names agree, and, unfortunately, they have inserted themselves into ICANN’s policy-making process. For example, the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) in ICANN's multistakeholder operational model is responsible for introducing and developing the top-level domain policy at hand. The GNSO, however, is largely composed of the same registries and registrars that stand to gain financially by the proposed massive introduction of new top-level domains.
This new policy will have great social, economic and security costs. If these new top-level domains are introduced, opportunities for cybercrime and fraud would be increased substantially.
If you are a consumer attempting to set up a checking account online, and you have to decide which website to give your personal information to – citi.bank, bank.citi, citi.com, citi.bankaccount or even citichecking.bankaccount – how would you determine which are trusted sites providing accurate information? How would you determine which are fraudulent sites actively misinforming the public?
A massive introduction of top-level domains will overwhelm the existing framework for combating cybercrime, putting millions of internet users at unnecessary risk.
In addition, consumers will be forced to take extensive measures to protect themselves from fraud and other malicious activities on the internet. They may grow wary of conducting online transactions. And companies will have to pay more to protect their trademarks.
Perhaps most dangerously, our national security might be further compromised as a vastly expanded internet increases places for terrorists and criminals to hide in cyberspace.
At the time of ICANN’s conception in the late 1990s, few anticipated the economic value of domain names or imagined a company, like today’s ubiquitous GoDaddy, that would capitalize on that value.
ICANN’s original mission – as a domain name regulator with a policy-making process inclusive of all internet users – was well-intentioned, but it has been polluted by constituents primarily concerned with financial gain, leaving the rest of us bearing the cost.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of Nao Matsukata.
© 2011 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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OK. Good points. So how do we turn this around and prevent financial interests from perverting policy, enforcement, and profit? Will this group eventually diminish our right to free speech as well? Seems inevitable.
What group could presume to be an opposing or rebuttal governance body? Without a strong answer to this question there is no hope of arresting the runaway greed and overkill as described here.
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/mission Is who runs the web and has the potential ......Tim Berners-Lee is the Daddy of it all check the facts .......Sincerely
Confusing maybe, but ", opportunities for cybercrime and fraud would be increased substantially" is a huge stretch.
And increasing choice endangers our national security by giving terrorists more places to hide? come on, you think we could keep tabs on them better if there is a .terrorist domain? This opinion is alarmist at best.
Alex grab a brain. Which is easier: if we have 23 cities to watch for terrorists in or 400 cities?
Certificates is a solution, but unrealistic on the scale you are talking about. It's difficult but manageable in a company of 50,000 users but unrealistic with 2 or 3 billion internet users.
This argument is idiotic, rate of growth of the internet is unaffected by this policy. The only thing that changes is how human readable phrases like mycat.org are translated into unique identifiers. Even if searching for terrorists on the internet was like banging down the door of houses at addresses like terror.newjersey, you aren't going to have 50 times more doors to knock down now. Its just a great diversity of address. But I probably can't convince someone who posted this so as you iterate over the set of logical permutations of legal characters your web browser will accept and decide which ones you'd like to interrogate the webmaster for on the ground of suspicion of terrorism, remember you are a total idiot.
what they are describing is an unimaginable increase in the size of the internet. My question is based on the infrastructure that is in place would we have even close to enough server space anywhere to host that much content??? its insane... There are well over 200 Million websites on the internet... On 21 primary domains. try and imagine this now! We are talking about billions and billions possibly pushing a trillion websites in a decade. WOW!
This will have no affect on the size of the internet, just what you need to type into the url bar of your web browser.....
Bigger question. Why should they get to decide this in a vacuum? By that I mean, who other than industry people are involved in this process? And why are they elected instead of "Appointed" somehow? The internet has shown it's ability to help democracy why not here too?
I really don't care who runs the internet system but I wish that whoever does it would police the system better. Someone hijacked a certain e-mail address for the purpose of promoting their product. Up to now,I didn't think that was possible but I guess it is and it needs to be stopped. The scary part is that practice could be used to promote child pornogrphy. These criminals think of everything under the sun!!!
I'm with you,Onesmallvoice. The idea that these criminals can hijack somebody's e-mail address is truly scary,especially when it involves child pornography. The fact that child pornography has become so pervasive is indicative of the sick society that we're all living in! We need to quit policing the world and start policing the internet!!!
There is always a way.
One of the greatest tools ever invented is the internet and one of the reasons is the freedom of the flow of information. Don't give into fear and ignorance and allow those in power, whether it be big business, government or religion control that information. Fight the real fight for freedom, it's not in Afghanistan, it's in cyberspace. Knowledge is power.
Knowledge is power of course it is but attaining knowledge will not alter or change anything unless someone takes action on that knowledge whose motivations stem from altruism.
I agree with Nao Matsukata on this one.
Creating confusion for users should be avoided. Yes, increasing industry options can be good for the economy but there are too many predators out there taking advantage of those who are less tech savvy to understand all the nuances behind "more choices".
Additionally, creating "too much to learn" restricts access of small business owners/ new business creaters by costs generated by those trying to make money off the small business owners neeeds to computerize their businesses.
Some controls and restrictions should be in place but not necesarrily by this single entity (ICANN).
Who Uses the Internet?
The issues of trademark, censorship, libel etc have long been entrenched in the over 205 million domain names already registered ( citibankcheck.com? citionlinechecker.net? bankciticheck.org?... the list goes on). Should these issues, first and foremost the remit of law courts, be reason to limit expansion of the system?
By its very nature, regulation always finds itself at least one or two steps behind innovation. (ie: no 70 MPH speed limit or drink drive enforcement team necessary when riding chariots through Roman Forums in 44 BC). Ultimately law will catch up and make resolution of trademark and other such issues a simpler and cheaper process.
Perhaps this is the time to throw the spotlight towards those who fear (and in some cases, those who look to instill fear) whenever there is the slightest mention of real evolution and expansion of the World Wide Web.
For the man/woman looking to order a pizza on-line, it's not about knowing he/she can access 200 million plus websites (visiting each site for just a few seconds would take several years...without a pizza break). This is about memorability...ie: trying to remember the website of that place you saw advertised last week somewhere that looked quite good. Without the barrier of million Dollar price tags, Internet users want equal access to Domains and TLDs that are easily remembered by other people. This is about giving people the opportunity to compete on reasonably equal terms with the minority of Corporations/Multi-Nationals that seem to hold all the cards.
Sites like Dashworlds.com provide brand new Dashcom (not Dotcom) domain names completely free. Dashcoms are unique, relevant and memorable addresses such as business-com, paris-fashion and social-network (Examples Only). Totally outside the realm and control of ICANN, anyone can create any domain or any TLD in any language, instantly and at no cost. With users and members in over 90 countries worldwide, resolution is via an APP; although new ISP Links are available to make the APP unnecessary (ISP Links that are also available to ICANN).
Not-so-long-ago, people would have thought the Internet itself to be a complete waste of time effort and money. Surely a retailer, ANY retailer, (eg: a certain bookstore) would be mad to waste time, money and resources trying to sell anything over the Inter-Something? After all why would any consumer in their right mind even consider purchasing a vastly expensive computer, install/rent new phone lines, buy a modem (what's a modem?), buy an OS (what's an OS??), learn how to use it all.....Just to buy a book???.....All they had to do was pick up a phone.
Having just one Internet floating in infinite cyberspace is like saying you can go anywhere in the USA as long as you only use route 66. So now, just as in the USA (and everywhere else in the world) the Internet has more than one option.
Al Gore invented ICANN
"If you are a consumer attempting to set up a checking account online, and you have to decide which website to give your personal information to – citi.bank, bank.citi, citi.com, citi.bankaccount or even citichecking.bankaccount – how would you determine which are trusted sites providing accurate information? How would you determine which are fraudulent sites actively misinforming the public?"
Things like certificate authorities solve this. Current generation browser make trusted sites pretty obvious and if users are still confused, either the browsers need to evolve or these users should consider becoming slightly educated.
Certificate providers cannot solve that identification issue. Consumers aren't tuned to look for a green bar yet, so getting an SSL is a simple as matching an SSL request to the WHOIS informaiton for some similarly official sounding name, say, "Citi Check Services" and you can get a cert with no problem.
The "issues" here smack of learned helplessness.
The writer assumes we'll sit at home and flail away, poking mindlessly into this site and that, looking for the trustworthy one. Phooey. The answer is simple: Pick up the Phone. Step out the door. Start your car. Are we not Men? Get a local checking account. Get up on your hind legs and Ask your teller or bank manager which web site to use when you're working with your account from home. Just becasue all these sites exist (might exist) doesn't mean anyone has to Use them, or even look for them. and jsut because the web exists, we shouldn't be distracted from the fact that Humans also still exist. The Great Problem of the modern age is the temptation to replace face-to-face human information exchange with a computer, as though the latter is the better option. It's just not.
More names Will make the 'net more complicated. But we've got the resources to deal with it. They are called friends, family, and neighbors.
And speaking of doing business locally, I have not noted that any of you have considered this from the Corporate point of view. A key issue for any company trying to do business on the web is ensuring that customers can Find the site, that they trust it when they get there, and that use of the site does not create risk for the user. This means two things to me. One is that most of the potential safety issues will be mitigated by the Sellers themselves. I'm Citibank and and I'm going to have to buy about 200 more domain names now, just to ensure that my existing one stays in the clear, easily found and safely used. This minimizes the risk that my customers will be waylaid by i-bandits. And so forth. The time & money expended from the Corporate/seller side will be Immense. Heck: Jobs will be created, just for this reason. Boo-ya.
The other thing is that we're really only talking Consumer fear here. Companies of any size will continue to send their data back and forth via EDI or whatever, based on previous & on-going relationships. Citibank's ability to transact internal business & business with subsidiaries & so on will suffer no ill-effects when the naming possibilities expand. It's the consumers who May be affected. And I say to them, I sez: So what? Go shopping. Ride your bike into town to buy a book. Go to the library. Visit the local hardware store. Life doesn't end at the keyboard, neither does commerce. The very Worst that could happen if the internet completely caved in over the next half hour is that folks would be out peddling wares on the streets by dinner time. By the end of the month all our down-towns would magically re-fill with stores. The tide comes in, the tide goes out. Whatever. Point is, people find a way - they gravitate towards the ways that are safest, or cheapest or most effective. And commerce tries to meet us there. If consumer dollars migrate away from the net, the net will evolve.
IT'S AS VAIN A PLOY AS VANITY EMAIL.
((( All the makings of a Vertical Search for Kiddies ! )))
Also, it does less than NOTHING to solve the # 1 TRUST ISSUE on the web,
further stymieing the outcome of Web 4.0 which is total automation, NOT further vanity.
Believe me – - a better plan is ON THE WAY.
- Dave in Akron
Believe me, ABDULLAH THE BUTCHER has a much better plan.
Comparing the internet to an interstate is ludicrous. US can barely secure .com now you are asking for another internet? thats like people expecting an after life when they barely know what to do witht his one. smh politics.
As long as I can access my free poorn, I don't care who runs things in the background
misleading headline
People should not speak about what they don't understand. You say "If you are a consumer attempting to set up a checking account online, and you have to decide which website to give your personal information to – citi.bank, bank.citi, citi.com, citi.bankaccount or even citichecking.bankaccount – how would you determine which are trusted sites providing accurate information? " but how is that different from not knowing if you should go to citi.com, citibank.com citi-bank.com citi-checking.com, citibankchecking.com, bankingatciti.com, etc? People are already idiots. if you are concerned about people staying safe online, computers should be required to have a mechanism in them that will punch the user in the face when they click on a link in a "this is so cute!" type email. People are stupid, and adding TLDs won't change that. If you're concerned about people's safety, require licensing to use a computer like we require licensing to drive a car.
Master Blaster runs Internet! Lift embargo!
If Master Blaster runs the internet, he is doing so under the direct supervision of ABDULLAH THE BUTCHER.
Wow, by the time I got to the end of the article I've already thought of 23 different ways to scam someone. Mostly elders since there are less of them that understand computers and technology. This is great news. Big $$$ here I come.
The internet is really run by ABDULLAH THE BUTCHER from the back of his fine eatery located in Atlanta Georgia.
By the way, when referring to the "Internet" it should be spelled with a capital "I". How is it that writers who get paid don't know that? I didn't do very well in my English college classes but at least I know what a proper noun is. Get it right if you're going to write!
Internet!
DNS is just a pointer anyway, this doesn't change anything or increase the size of the "internet" or number of hosts on the internet. Clods
No but if you have 2000 people spread across 23 buildings it's much easier to police or manage them then if those 2000 people are spread across 400 buildings.
Your argument is non sequitur, how are internet domains and buildings related at all? Your first statement was certainly true but if i see something wrong at an address which is mapped to domain 22 through 400 I don't need to have a guard on location to react to it like I would a building.......
Who runs the Internet? Al Gore runs it out of his basement. (He invented it, remember?) That is why his electric bill is so high.
~
Who runs teh internets? Al Gore, of course!
Now it will be easier than ever for scumbag cyber squatters to steal names is volumes of thousands at a time.
ICANN is the I can't of the Internet world, they can't do anything right and haven't from the very beginning.
This is actually a good thing, we need competition on the internet...huge corporations are swimming in the money with these top domains, they will get what they deserve.
Heck, I wanted to be the one to say AL GORE, but its probably the ELITE British, Israeli and US intelligence services.
A quote from the article:
"Right now, there are 21 top-level domains. If ICANN’s new policy is implemented, we will see top-level domains such as .car, .newyorkcity, .hotels and hundreds more. Internet real estate will grow exponentially, creating a more complex experience for every user."
That part about this being a more complex experience for every user is really unnecessary. It sounds like negative press, and for what purpose? I don’t get it. This would be like saying, “If 5,000 new words were added to the English dictionary, people will have a more difficult time trying to communicate.”
The addition of the new top-level domains actually simplifies a user’s experience because it aids in identifying the nature of the connection. Just because we are all familiar with and got used to .com and .org doesn’t mean we can’t change and expand our horizons. I think a Republican wrote that article.
The author goes on to give a more negative meaning to the decision by inferring that only certain people stand to gain financially from the decision:
"Those in the business of making money by selling domain names agree, and, unfortunately, they have inserted themselves into ICANN’s policy-making process. For example, the Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) in ICANN's multistakeholder operational model is responsible for introducing and developing the top-level domain policy at hand. The GNSO, however, is largely composed of the same registries and registrars that stand to gain financially by the proposed massive introduction of new top-level domains."
So what? Is the author complaining that the financial gain isn’t being spread around to everyone? Now I think the author is a Democrat!
Oops! Wait a minute! Here’s more doom and gloom:
"This new policy will have great social, economic and security costs. If these new top-level domains are introduced, opportunities for cybercrime and fraud would be increased substantially."
His question:
"How would you determine which are fraudulent sites actively misinforming the public?"
The answer simply is: call the supposed owner of the site and get confirmation. What’s so difficult about that? People get scammed every day simply because they don’t bother to verify the source of the so-called official email or URL. The courts have a saying for this: Caveat emptor.
The author goes on.
"A massive introduction of top-level domains will overwhelm the existing framework for combating cybercrime, putting millions of internet users at unnecessary risk."
No more than what is already happening. Just because the 400 new top-level domains introduces more opportunities for scamming doesn’t mean that scamming will increase anymore than it is already. It doesn’t even mean that it will add to the workload of authorities trying to pin down and stop scammers. It only means what you and I and the author want it to mean. If the public gets swayed by this article to join some movement to stop this decision, it would be like asking Webster to stop adding new words to the dictionary.
More:
"In addition, consumers will be forced to take extensive measures to protect themselves from fraud and other malicious activities on the internet."
Extensive measures? What? Name them! Yes, I can make up a lot of scenarios wherein the Internet Public has to protect themselves from nefarious activities. That list won’t increase one iota by adding 400 new top-level domains. The number of directions from where one can get scammed doesn’t change how one avoids being scammed. Where is there any sanity in this author’s comments? Doom and Gloom seems to be his favorite perspective. Who taught this guy to see things objectively? That lesson obviously failed.
The final blow:
"ICANN’s original mission – as a domain name regulator with a policy-making process inclusive of all internet users – was well-intentioned, but it has been polluted by constituents primarily concerned with financial gain, leaving the rest of us bearing the cost."
What cost? Where’s the facts behind this statement? Is it the potential cost of being scammed? I can’t see that there is any out-of-pocket cost to the Internet Public for adding new top-level domains!
The variety of comments on this article seems to indicate that there are about as many people who agree with the author as disagree with him. Some people are clearly confused by saying they don’t like the idea of a small group of people making decisions like this. To get a Democratic version of this decision would require a majority of the world’s population to know as much about the Internet as that small group of people – good luck on that one!
lectures are like skirts. a good one is just long enough to cover the points of interest, but still short enough to be interesting.
More of the sensationalist reporting typical of CNN. Firstly, you should ALWAYS get your web addresses for secure sites from an authentic source – this doesn't change that. Secondly, there aren't "more places to hide" – that comment has no techological relation to this change. If you really want to hide, why would you advertise the existence of your Internet presence with a commercial domain name at all?
Sounds like a scam. GNSO and ICANN working together. Do we really need GNSO. They sound like opportunists that don´t even need to exist.
I have to decide whether to laugh or cry, and I can't. I won't go into how DNS works and how DNS servers can be set up to authenticate domains, that is in the noise. IPv6 is replacing IPv4 and some ISPs will give you an IPv6 permanent address if you ask. Rather than increase the number of available addresses to 4 billion times as many as there are now, IPv6 has an unimaginable number of addresses. Structuring DNS servers to access all those new addresses and map them to names (or vice versa) is what this proposal is really all about. New TLDs (top level domains) can be given a subset of the numerical name space, so for example, 12345:678:: can map to .bank.
So adding lots of new TLDs will simplify the job of DNS servers. End of story–or it should be.
You are persuasive, but is not IPv6 still in its infancy? Is IPv6 not a massive hardware/software upgrade, from IPv4? Wikipedia notes: "Compatibility with IPv6 networking is mainly a software or firmware issue. However, much of the older hardware that could in principle be upgraded is likely to be replaced instead. The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) suggests that all Internet servers be prepared to serve IPv6-only clients by January 2012."
How tall an order is that?
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Trade mark & patent register are being servicing successfully from years. Web registry should introduce some of those procedures in granting domain name. This could help web criminals difficult to enter in market place.
If Internet in future become tome consuming, unreliable source, fraud prone general public will drop using Internet. Even if it currently look inevitable.
Most obvious is that hundreds of new top level domains are not even needed. This ICANN proposal is not driven by consumer need or what is in the best interest of the Internet, but by a small select group who stand to make their small fortune at the expense of millions of Internet uses and global corporations.
ICANN should release only a few targeted domains per year. This allows for gradual assimilation into the larger Internet structure without flooding the net with garbage. Hundreds of new domains on the Internet is the equivalent of dumping a bucket of chum into a fishbowl. Many individuals and companies are against unlimited new top level domains.
This article misunderstands (deliberately, I assume) the nature of the GNSO.
The GNSO is made up of contracted parties (the registries and registrars that Mr Matsukata doesn't like) and non-contracted parties, such as intellectual property interests, ISPs, business interests and non-commercial users.
Registries and registrars hold about a third of the seats on the GNSO Council.
For the GNSO to approve a policy, both contracted and non-contracted parties have to vote in favor of it. To suggest registries and registrars have captured the GNSO is therefore disingenuous.
Matsukata should know this. If he does, this piece is nothing but propaganda. If he doesn't, he's not much of an expert.
Wasn't the GNSO was restructured as a result of the London School of Economics Study & report AFTER the GNSO's proposal for new gTLDs? I seriously doubt a policy like the proposals for unlimited new gTLDs would pass today.
But thats a flaw of ICANN generally even when there are fundamental process failings along the way there is often no way or will to correct those failings.
Do you really feel that Syria spying on dissidents?