Saturday, June 15, 2002

Competition Is Heating Up for Control of .org Domain
Although the management of .org was once intended to go to a nonprofit organization, the competition has more recently attracted some profit-minded businesses.

In addition, the competition is likely to become much more visible with the entry on Monday of two iconoclastic Internet pioneers who say that many of the entrants have served as shields for large businesses that are hoping to help themselves to what some analysts estimate will be a $10-million-a-year business.

One of those pioneers, Carl Malamud, has previously forced the government to make Securities and Exchange Commission financial data available freely over the Internet. His partner, Paul Vixie, has been a longtime Internet software developer and a determined opponent of unsolicited commercial e-mail, known as spam. The two said they intended to run the .org registry on a nonprofit basis.

Mr. Malamud and Mr. Vixie say their plan differs from those of other competitors because they intend to place the database software needed to operate the .org name system in the public domain.

"Is this a public trust or a public trough?" Mr. Malamud asked.

James Love, director of the Consumer Project on Technology, a Washington lobbying group, says the competition has drawn commercial bidders that have associated themselves with a nonprofit organization to improve the appearance in front of the Icann review committee.

But Icann's supporters respond that the organization has created a process that will select the group that will best manage the database.

"Icann is trying hard to make sure this isn't a gold rush," said Esther Dyson, chairwoman of EDventure Holdings and a former chairwoman of Icann.

Mr. Malamud, who heads the Internet Multicasting Society, an organization in Stewarts Point, Calif., that develops open source Internet software, and Mr. Vixie, who founded the Internet Software Consortium, a group in Redwood City, Calif., that develops open source versions of crucial Internet infrastructure software, said they planned to place the complex software used to manage domain names in the public domain as open source, freely available to any organization.

They say that would have the twin effect of making it simpler for Icann to diversify control of the domains as well as making it easier to create new ones. The issue is a hotly debated one that the organization, which was created under a contract with the United States Commerce Department, is struggling with.

"This shouldn't be a dot-com opportunity," Mr. Malamud said. "There has been a lot of smoke and mirrors, but what we need is actually a public utility that is well managed in the public interest."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/15/technology/15NET.html

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