DNS Issues
COM vs. NET domains
There seems to be some confusion about the use of the top-level
domains COM and NET. COM is mandated for commercial entities,
while NET is mandated for the NIC and NOC, administrative, and
node computers of network providers. Many, many end-user
Internet service providers are incorrectly giving their domestic
general-use servers domains in NET, and giving their customers
".net" email addresses.
Update: Somebody recently reported on comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains
that InterNIC responded to their request for a NET domain asking
if they were sure they met the proper criteria. Could InterNIC be
forming a solid policy on the use of NET domains? (2/13/96)
InterNIC begins charging
On September 13, 1995, Network Solutions, Inc., the registration
services division of InterNIC, began charging for domains
within the COM, ORG, NET, EDU, and GOV top-level domains.
The fee is $50 per year, with the first two years prepaid
for new registrations. This caused an uproar in the Internet
community, mainly because NSI did not give much notice
before implementing the new policy, and it appeared to many
that NSI was trying to place itself in a monopoly position
where there would be no competition.
It's probably just as well, though, because these domains,
especially COM, have grown tremendously in recent years, and
the ability of the DNS to handle such immensely huge
top-level zones much longer is questionable. As of this
writing, the COM zone file is 21MB. DNS was meant to be a
very hierarchical system, and the continued use of these flat
domain spaces does not take advantage of hierarchy. With the
charging of the traditional domain names, perhaps people
will turn to the more efficient geographical name space.
Personal domain hierarchy?
Every once in a while, the issue of a personal domain hierarchy
has been raised on the comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains newsgroup.
Such a hierarchy would involve a new top-level domain, such as
"PERS", and provide a mechanism for potentially every human
being on the planet to register a domain within this hierarchy
independent of geography. Nobody has yet to provide an
elegant way of organizing such a hierarchy, however. Personal
names could not be used, because so many people share the same
name. Many people contend that such a hierarchy would be so
necessarily abstract that it would be useless.
Last modified: April 10, 2003 02:58:41 UTC
David Simmons
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