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 <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
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@myfamily and
> www.myfamily and smtp.myfamily and ... instead of [log in to unmask] 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<[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> 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.
>
>
>
>
>
|
