Domain Lettuce: Major players in the Internet...

Domain Lettuce: Major players in the Internet community will gather this week in Geneva to sign an agreement they say will revolutionize the way increasingly valuable domain names are doled out. But as the three-day event draws near, it is becoming clear that not everyone plans to celebrate.

For four years, Network Solutions Inc. has been administering the registration of Internet domain names--the part that typically comes between the “www.” and the “.com,” “.net” or “.org”--under a contract from the National Science Foundation. The Herndon, Va.-based company has registered 1.2 million sites and charges $100 apiece; 30% of the revenue is earmarked for improvements in the Internet infrastructure, but the company keeps the rest.

Irked by the monopolistic nature of that arrangement, several groups--including the Internet Society, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union--formed an ad hoc committee. They devised a form of Internet self-governance that would open up the market for domain registration and allow entrepreneurs to sign up addresses that end in seven new suffixes, including “.store,” “.info,” and “.web.”

The plan calls for 28 new registrars--to be chosen through an application process administered by the consulting firm Arthur Andersen--to compete with each other and Network Solutions. Anyone with a trademark dispute can take it to a streamlined system of arbitration and mediation to bypass a drawn-out battle in the courts.

“Right now it’s a monopoly,” said Internet Society President Don Heath, who formed the committee. Under his plan, “the prices should be less because we’ll have a true competition for services.”

Chris Ambler would certainly like to compete. The president of a San Luis Obispo Web design firm called Image Online wants to sell domain names that end in “.web” for a mere $35. Ambler said he got approval to use the suffix from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority last July and has signed up nearly 4,000 customers.

But the IANA has not yet put “.web” in the “root servers” that make it possible for Web surfers to find specific addresses. Plus, Ambler said the committee’s plan would usurp the use of his “.web” domains.

“They’re taking our business property and mandating that it be shared among other people,” said Ambler, who has filed suit against the IANA and the committee.