Web Power Struggle Delays New Domain Name System

Today was supposed to have been a milestone day in the evolution of the Internet as a fully self-governing international entity.

Instead, the global information network is laboring under the worst power struggle among administrators in its history.

After three years of work by computer scientists, private businesses and government negotiators, Network Solutions Inc. was supposed to relinquish its control of the system for registering Internet addresses, or “domain names,” ending in .com, .net and .org to a new concern, the nonprofit Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN.

The idea was to usher in a new era of open competition and self-governance for the global computer network by ending Network Solutions’ registration monopoly, which is the result of an exclusive government contract. A number of high-tech luminaries, including Internet guru Esther Dyson, were drafted to join ICANN’s initial board of directors.

Instead, the transition has stalled amid accusations that Network Solutions is deliberately trying to prolong its monopoly and that ICANN, which is based in Los Angeles, is really trying to take over the Internet. Both NSI and ICANN deny the charges.

At issue in the short term is the price Internet users pay to register and maintain domain names--such as yahoo.com or consumerreports.org--in the three most popular categories. NSI and ICANN have jurisdiction over .com (for commercial establishments), .org (for nonprofit organizations), and .net (for Internet organizations or services).

Network Solutions, which registers domain names and grants applicants exclusive rights to their use the way the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office registers trademarks and service marks for companies, has been charging domain holders $35 a year, a price many critics say is exorbitant given the meager overhead necessary.

In the long run, how the current dispute is resolved “will affect your ability to be online, it will affect what [content] gets online, what’s regulated, what’s not regulated, how free cyberspace is, how stable it is, and how technically efficient it is,” said Milton Mueller, an associate professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies.

On a larger scale, the power struggle reflects the competing interests of the old-line “techies” who built the Internet and the new commercial interests that have come online as the Internet has exploded into a mass consumer medium.

“My concern is that the techies are being pushed out and the lawyers are taking over,” said Wayne State University law professor Jonathan Weinberg, who helped formulate the Clinton administration’s Internet policy during a stint at the Federal Communications Commission. “The lawyers will push the Internet into a shape where it is best suited for making money. That may be good for e-commerce, but it’s not necessarily good for the Internet as a whole.”

ICANN was set up to supervise the domain name system by accrediting private companies to accept registrations. Like Network Solutions, the new registrars would charge for their services, but the competition was expected to reduce those fees by half or more. Specialized domain names ending in .edu (for educational institutions), .gov (governments) and .mil (military establishments) are not affected, nor are country codes administered by foreign governments, such as those ending in .uk (United Kingdom).

But so far, only one of the 37 companies that ICANN has accredited to compete with Herndon, Va.-based Network Solutions is actually doing so. The starting date for full competition, originally set for today, has been pushed back one month.

Of course, the Internet was not designed with commercial interests in mind. What began as a Defense Department project to link academic researchers spread around the country became an essential tool for computer scientists funded by the National Science Foundation. In 1993, the government gave Network Solutions a contract to administer the registration of domain names.

As more and more companies began registering domain names, the NSF stopped subsidizing the process and allowed Network Solutions to charge fees approved by the government. What began as a mundane outsourcing contract became a lucrative government-sanctioned monopoly, with NSI collecting $35 for each domain name each year. To date, the company has registered more than 5 million names. In 1998, NSI made a profit of $11.2 million on revenue of nearly $94 million.

Not surprisingly, other companies began to clamor for a piece of the action. In 1997, Internet leaders from around the world signed an agreement to introduce competition for Network Solutions and to create seven new top-level domains--such as “.store,” “.info” and “.web.”

That plan was put on hold last year when the Clinton administration released its own plan for Internet self-governance. The plan touched off a worldwide debate about the best way to manage the Internet and allow it to grow. Even after the administration moved forward with its own plan by granting ICANN the authority to develop a privately operated domain name system, the debate raged on.

“Everyone was sniping at each other and it degenerated into chaos,” said Karl Auerbach, an engineer with Cisco Systems who led a group that proposed an alternative to ICANN.

ICANN’s critics complain about the group’s penchant for making decisions in private meetings instead of in open forums. Some argue that big corporations wield too much influence.

Many complain that ICANN’s unelected board members aren’t accountable to anybody. There is also concern about ICANN’s proposal to levy a fee of up to $1 per domain name to fund its operations.

Dyson, ICANN’s interim chairwoman, acknowledged in an interview that the group made mistakes at first but said it has improved since then. The board holds public meetings before its quarterly board meetings, and publishes the text of its resolutions and discusses its decisions with the media.

ICANN is threshing out a plan to allow the Internet community as a whole to elect nine “at large” board members. Another nine members will be elected by three supporting organizations, which are currently forming. The ICANN board is also looking into the need for new top-level domains and considering the consequences the new domain name suffixes would have on intellectual property and trademark laws.

“Some people don’t want us to be a world government, and I agree with them,” Dyson said.

But she dismissed some of ICANN’s critics as mouthpieces for Network Solutions, which has emerged as ICANN’s most vehement detractor.

Indeed, NSI’s revenue stream from registration gives it a powerful incentive to delay, said Ken Stubbs, chairman of the Council of Internet Registrars, a group of 85 companies in 23 countries that plan to compete with NSI.

Network Solutions denies it is foot-dragging. In fact, the company invested $25 million to develop a registry system that can be utilized by its competitors, said spokesman Brian O’Shaughnessy.

“This is not like slapping another auction site up on the Internet,” O’Shaughnessy said. “This is about the [Web’s] critical infrastructure.”