Fracturing the Internet with Alternate Roots

(This column was originally published by NewsFactor Network, July 8, 2002.)

Kirk L. Kroeker

The Internet's root zone servers identify the nameservers that computers must consult to translate a domain name to an IP address. Several companies, such as NameSlinger, Name-Space and New.net, run alternative root zone servers to provide nonstandard domain registration services to consumers who want more options than the current set of top-level domains (TLDs) can provide.

From one perspective, these commercial alternative roots make sense because ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) -- dominated by private interest rather than the interest of the public -- has adopted alternative TLDs far too slowly.

But domains that run under alternative roots can easily confuse consumers, many of whom are unaware that these domain names don't work like ICANN-approved TLDs. Unlike ICANN-approved TLDs, which work for 100 percent of the people who access the Internet, only a fraction of the global Internet population can actually access TLDs that require an alternative root.

Fractions Matter

There are several noncommercial alternative root providers -- such as OpenNIC -- that are not driven by business interest and that serve as testbeds for DNS and related development. But the largest alternative root providers have no public oversight and remain veiled behind private enterprise, making it difficult to predict just how many consumers have registered these crippled domains.

Out of the several commercial alternative root providers, New.net seems to have achieved the largest global visibility. The company claims that roughly 120 million people can see its 80 alternative TLDs, including .shop, .family, .kids and .law. One of the ways New.net has achieved this visibility is by partnering with several ISPs, whose DNS servers interface with New.net's.

That number -- 120 million -- might sound significant, but because roughly 500 million people access the Internet globally, it really is just a little more than 20 percent of the Internet population. This means that if you register a New.net TLD -- at $35 per year, mind you -- your domain won't work for 80 percent of the people on the Internet, a figure that New.net carefully avoids mentioning.

Unreal Root

But regardless of the 120 million people who can see New.net domains, these alternative domains, such as .shop, function mainly like third-level domains. And if you don't muck around with your box's DNS settings -- or install New.net's proprietary plug-in -- the only way you'll be able to access pie.shop, for example, is as a tertiary subdomain of new.net, like pie.shop.new.net.

New.net does use a real root zone with entries for each of its TLDs. And the company does have real TLD zones that answer with real results, not aliases. But if you build a site with a New.net domain, 80 percent of the people on the Internet will not be able to access it directly. And anybody sending e-mail to, for example, the pie.shop domain, has to append new.net to the end of any correspondence -- for example, you@pie.shop.new.net -- or the e-mail will bounce.

Not all of New.net's customers are happy about having registered domains that only work for 20 percent of the global Internet population. And several of these customers have made that very clear in New.net's forum.

Peering Problems

I am no fan of ICANN. In fact, I honestly believe ICANN is so flawed that it must be torn down and rebuilt as an international organization before it can serve public rather than corporate interest.

But I am even less a fan of commercially driven alternative roots that have the potential to fracture the Internet into gigantic LANs (local area networks), making large chunks of the Internet inaccessible to large percentages of the Internet population. Given the number of recent domain name scams, New.net's strategy has great potential to spread additional confusion among registrants.

Ultimately, what New.net does remains legal because the company posts a small-print disclaimer at the bottom of its site. But because New.net does not work with standards bodies, there is nothing preventing another company from introducing the same domains in a different alternative root, forcing bizarre peering arrangements that would likely cause much trouble on the Net.

Feeding on Ignorance

About two months ago, New.net published a nicely written white paper that calls for ICANN reform. Since New.net operates completely outside ICANN-sanctioned domain space, publishing this protest seems, at best, ironic. To me, New.net's protest reads like the declaration of a land squatter calling for the reform of property laws.

I hope ICANN -- or a real consensus-based international governance body that has legitimate public oversight -- will eventually respond to the alternative roots by approving TLDs that both contain and far outnumber the offerings of alternative root providers.

In the absence of a dot-sucks TLD, let me take the opportunity to say it here, on a dot-com that has 100 percent global accessibility: Capitalizing on consumer ignorance sucks.

Kirk L. Kroeker is a freelance editor and writer. Contact him at http://kroeker.net.