WHITHER
.ORG?
by
Ellen
Rony
Copyright
© 2001 Ellen Rony. All rights
reserved.
The .ORG
top level domain (TLD) is the weakest sibling of
celebrated .COM. A slowing economy has turned dot-com
into dot-comatose, but dot-orgs have always languished on
the sidelines, receiving attention mostly by spillover.
Attached at the hip through shared registry
administration, ORG is a proverbial pretender to the
throne. If you can't get the domain name you want in COM,
you check whether it is available in .NET or
.ORG.
While the
growth of .COM is often described in
superlatives--unprecedented, extraordinary, singular,
boundless, staggering --. ORG has been comparatively
lackluster. It is home to all types of institutions
(commercial and non), charitable foundations,
professional societies, self-help groups, hobbyists,
clubs, credit unions, open source projects and public
interest advocates. It is used, as well, for personal
expression and vanity domains by individuals who feel a
.COM moniker is inappropriate. Recently, it has been
flashed on the television screen--TRIBUTETOHEROES.ORG,
LIBERTYUNITES.ORG. Yet, .ORG domain names are often
eschewed for the widely-heralded .COM to promote a cause
(SAVEASTRAY.COM, BOYCOTTADOBE.COM), create a memorial
(FLAGOF REMEMBRANCE.COM), protest an injustice
(FREEJENNER.COM) and disparage a company
(MICROSOFT-SUCKS.COM).
FLYING
SOLO
Since
1993, the .ORG registry has been administered by Network
Solutions Inc. (NSI), now a subsidiary of VeriSign, Inc.
Before the Internet began growing exponentially, NSI was
the beneficiary of a Cooperative Agreement awarded by the
National Science Foundation to manage registration
services for the three generic TLDs--COM, .NET and .ORG.
In November 1999, the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN) negotiated an agreement to
extend NSI's control of its registry services for four
additional years if it divested its registrar or registry
activities by May 10, 2001. As VeriSign prepared to sell
off its registrar operations, it secretly negotiated a
proposed
new agreement
with ICANN, which was announced on March 1,
2001.
The
revised
ICANN/VeriSign Agreement
creates dramatic change in the long familiar structure of
gTLD administration. It splits the .COM, .NET and .ORG
registries into three separate agreements, with VeriSign
permanently relinquishing its right to manage .ORG on
December
31,2002.
A new registry operator from the non-commercial sector
will be sought, and VeriSign will fund a $5 million
endowment to be used by ICANN in its sole discretion for
the future operating expenses of the
successor.
According
to ICANN,
"The net result of this would be a .ORG registry
returned, after some appropriate transition period, to
its originally intended function as a registry operated
by and for non-profit organizations."
This
statement raised a firestorm of controversy, and it is
small wonder that people are furious. Such a change in
.ORG's charter lacks historical basis and threatens to
displace many of the 2.8 million occupants who were
encouraged to "protect" their unique identity by
registering in .ORG and .NET as well as in .COM. From an
industry perspective, a plan to convert.ORG into a
restricted registry restricted to non-profits could
undermine the competitive effect of the VeriSign
divestiture.
THE
CATCH-ALL DOMAIN
The
technical evolution of the domain name system is tracked
by a document series called Requests For Comments (RFCs).
The domain name system was developed in 1983 to
decentralize the task of maintaining information on host
computers connected to ARPANet, the Internet's
predecessor. The flat global namespace, designated as
.ARPA, was reorganized into an initial set of five
general purpose top level domains introduced in the
landmark RFC-920,
"Domain Requirements" :
|
GOV
|
Government,
any government related domains meeting the
second level requirements
|
|
EDU
|
Education,
any education related domains meeting the second
level requirements
|
|
COM
|
Commercial,
any commercial related domains meeting the
second level requirements.
|
|
MIL
|
Military,
any military related domains meeting the second
level requirements.
|
|
ORG
|
Organization,
any other domains meeting the second level
requirements.
|
RFC-1032,
"Domain Administrator's Guide," published three years
later, noted that the general categories of top level
domains were designated so that each could accommodate a
variety of organizations:
"ORG"
exists as a parent to subdomains that do not clearly
fall within the other top-level domains. This may
include technical- support groups, professional
societies, or similar organizations.
RFC-1591,
"Domain Name System Structure and Delegation," is
considered a defining document. Written by Jon Postel in
October 1994, .ORG was notably described not by what it
is but by what it is not. It is not .COM, not .NET, not
.EDU or .GOV, .INT or .MIL. It could aptly be called the
"none-of-the-above" domain
ORG
- This domain is intended as the miscellaneous TLD for
organizations that didn't fit anywhere else. Some
non-government organizations may fit here.
The term
"organization" may be misleading regarding the original
nature of .ORG. Many identify "organizations" with
non-commercial entities such as trade associations,
professional societies and various non-profits. However,
the term is used here in a broader sense. A domain name
is considered to be registered to an organization, even
if the "organization" is an individual. Event planners,
corporate philanthropists, hobbyists, ad hoc advocates,
and personal users alike who register a domain name today
with the legacy registrar are doing so as an
"organization".
.ORG
registrants unfamiliar with the RFCs relied, instead,
upon NSI's representations of the gTLD, as incorporated
into its Domain Name Registration Template. NSI's
templates have undergone numerous iterations and reveal
how the definition of .ORG has been reworked in the past
six years to favor the broadest possible customer base
(Table 1). Template Versions 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 offered
NSI-spin unsupported by the historic RFCs but referred
registrants to RFC-1591 for the authoritative definition.
Before Version 4.0 was posted in March 1998, NSI was
already marketing .ORG as an open namespace, available to
any registrant. Currently, NSI
advises,
"Anyone may register Web Addresses in .COM, .NET, and
.ORG. In fact, the best way to protect the uniqueness of
your online identity and brands is to register your Web
Addresses in all of the top-level domains."
Table
1. NSI Domain Name Registration Templates
Definition of .ORG
|
|
NSI
Template
|
Date
|
Template
Description of .ORG
|
|
Version
1.0*
|
5/95
|
.ORG
is for not-for-profit and non-profit
organizations.
|
|
Version
1.0*
|
7/95
|
.ORG
is for not-for-profit and non-profit
organizations.
|
|
Version
2.0*
|
9/95
|
.ORG
is for miscellaneous usually non-profit
organizations.
|
|
Version
3.0*
|
5/96
|
.ORG
is for miscellaneous, usually non-profit
organizations.
|
|
Version
3.5
|
6/97
|
For
second-level domain names under .COM, .ORG,
.NET, .EDU or .GOV, insert the name of the
domain you wish to register as in,
EXAMPLE.COM".. . . GOV registrations are limited
to top-level United States federal government
agencies.
|
|
Version
4.0
|
3/98
|
For
second-level domain names under .COM, .ORG,
.NET, or .EDU, insert the name of the domain you
wish to register as in, "EXAMPLE.COM"
|
|
Version
5.0
|
11/99
|
Instructions
at:
http://www.networksolutions.com/help/inst-mod.html
|
|
Version
5.1
|
11/99
|
Instructions
at
http://www.networksolutions.com/help/inst-mod.html
|
|
Version
6.0
|
1/00
|
From
NSI
Glossary:
.ORG: The top-level domain originally designated
for miscellaneous entities such as non-profit
organizations that do not fit under any of the
other top-level domains. Any person or
organization may now register a domain name in
.org, a worldwide top-level domain.
|
*
Registrants are directed to "consult RFC
1591 to determine the most appropriate
top-level domain to join."
|
WEAKEST
REVENUE PRODUCER
On June 4,
2001, ICANN's board referred
the issues raised by the impending change in .ORG
management to the Names
Council
which, in turn, seeks policy recommendations from the
Domain Name Supporting Organization. The Names Council
established a Task
Force
which drafted a Proposed Statement of Policy for .ORG.
Its basic points include:
- .ORG
should be a sponsored top level domain with no
eligibility restrictions imposed on prospective
registrants.
- .ORG
should be intended for the non-commercial and
non-profit community, including individuals and groups
seeking an outlet for non-commercial expression,
social initiatives and information
exchange.
- Marketing
rather than eligibility restrictions should be used to
differentiate and strengthen the special identity of
.ORG. Defensive and duplicative registrations should
be discouraged.
- Administration
of .ORG should be delegated to a non-profit sponsoring
organization with international support and
participation of .ORG registrants and non-commercial
organizations within and outside of the ICANN
process.
- Current
.ORG registrants should not have their registrations
cancelled or their renewals denied due to the change
of TLD administration.
- Administration
must be consistent with ICANN policies, including
registrar accreditation, shared registry access, UDRP
dispute resolution, and access to registration contact
data.
A public
list for discussion of the
proposed .ORG policy was established at http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/ga-org/Arc00/.
The ICANN Board will take up thereassignment of .ORG at
its meeting
in Ghana.
Two
quintessential insiders weighed in early recommending
future restrictions in the use of .ORG. Michael Roberts,
ICANN's former president, asserts,
"The need for an appropriate transition period for the
.ORG registry to non-commercial status is fully
recognized by those working on the proposed
agreements."
Among
those he references is VeriSign's CEO, Stratton Sclavos,
who
explains,
"ICANN has agreed that, at a minimum, existing
registrants would be permitted to remain in the new .ORG
registry for one renewal cycle under its new management.
In addition, and as another part of the transition
process, all ICANN-accredited registrars would continue
to be permitted to register qualifying names in the .ORG
TLD for three years after termination of our operation of
the .ORG registry, during which period the new registry
could develop whatever registration policies for the
future it thought appropriate."
People are
roiling over the threat of new rules to "purify" .ORG. On
a public forum, critics of the revised ICANN-VeriSign
agreement quickly heaped scorn on the plan. They
repudiated ICANN's proposal to remove certain .ORG
domains as a profound betrayal of public trust within the
spirit of RFC- 1591 and NSI's registration policies for
.ORG as an open name space. The adjectives they use to
describe a retroactive change in the charter of .ORG are
terse and caustic: "counterproductive, costly, harmful,
unreasonable, unfair, unacceptable, arbitrary,
disrespectful, disruptive, destabilizing, heavy-handed,
punishing, incredibly daft, and downright rude " The call
to action was unequivocal: "No mandate, no consultation,
no way"
For
VeriSign, the opportunity to relinquish its weakest
producer is a brilliant strategic trade-off for the right
to maintain control over the lucrative .COM registry
while retaining registrar operations. Registrations in
.COM outpace .ORG nearly eight-fold and hold an
insurmountable lead over all other TLDs. Even NET,
originally intended only for networking infrastructure,
is growing at a brisker pace than .ORG.
According
to recent
domain registration
counts
(Table 2), of 29.9 million gTLD registrations by
mid-June, 22.7 million are in .COM, 4.37 million in .NET
and .ORG lags far behind with 2.8 million.
QUO
VADIS .ORG?
The
uncertainty in the future ORG administration has created
a state of rising tension among domain registrants.
Driving commercial entities out of the TLD would leave
homeless many companies that chose .ORG when the
preferred .COM domain name was unavailable. Advocates for
this approach claim that eventually, no one will expect
to find commercial business in .ORG. However, evictions
would also invalidate the many thousands of links that
have propagated throughout the Internet and create an
explosion of failed lookups and 404 alerts in a no-longer
nascent Internet.
ICANN
recognizes that grandfathering current registrations (not
subjecting existing ones to cancellation) will create the
least public disruption. During its June 4, 2001 meeting
in Stockholm, the ICANN board
urged
that "consideration be given to the positive effects on
stability of assuring the ability of present registrants
to continue their registrations."
That may
leave .ORG with a double standard which sparks lawsuits
and aggravates any effort to enforce a restricted
charter. Indeed, NSI gave up trying to do so five years
ago. There is no universal definition for non-profit. The
formal variations can stretch from completely volunteer
organizations to those with indirect commercial goals.
Non-profits can be established for public benefit, mutual
benefit or strictly charitable purposes. The permutations
are manifold.
.ORG
registrants may migrate to the new .INFO top level
domain. INFO is being introduced to compete with .COM,
but the nomenclature suggests a more business-neutral
milieu. Holders of registered trademarks had a
preferential opportunity to register domain names during
a sunrise period, so many of the most desirable names and
acronyms are already unavailable to non-commercial
entities and individuals. In response to complaints,
Afilias, the .INFO registry, announced
plans to review "suspicious" registrations of generic
words grabbed during the Sunrise period reserved solely
for certified trademark owners
Rather
than tightening the noose on .ORG, the proposal which has
collected greatest support is the introduction of
additional TLDs chartered specifically for non-profits
(.NPO), non-governmental organizations (.NGO) and other
types of non-commercial entities (.NCO). These would
still be difficult to enforce without strict guidelines,
which may make registrants balk, as uses for domain names
often change over time.
Like other
hotly contested domain name issues, the battle lines are
clearly drawn. NSI promoted the open use of .NET and .ORG
TLDs to all registrants and now advocates a restricted
role for the .COM competitor, which will be under new
management in 2003. Respondents are neither impressed nor
persuaded by the arguments to restrict .ORG's future use,
supported by ICANN's current and former presidents and
VeriSign's CEO. Registrants call it as they see
it--market manipulation and an ICANN scam which threatens
to remove the opportunity for self-selection within the
gTLDs. One individual underscored the nature of personal
expression in .ORG and immediately registered
HANDSOFFMY.ORG.
ICANN's
initial threat to restrict .ORG registrations looms over
the Names Council policy recommendations like low hanging
fruit waiting to be plucked by members of the board.
Strip the debate of its political outwear, and the
troubling notion of a marketing ploy emerges, as
described in one pithy message on the public
forum:
"Sell a product, then take it back, then sell it again to
someone else. Pure genius."
Other
reading:
