WSJ article:February 8, 1999 Guidelines Are Due on Competition
In Web-Domain Name Registration
By JOHN SIMONS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- Taking its first step toward breaking
Network Solutions Inc.'s hold on registering Internet-domain
names, a government-appointed panel is expected Monday to
release a draft set of guidelines for potential competitors.
The panel is expected to address whether to open the market
to smaller, relatively inexperienced firms or limit it to larger,
well-established entities such as telecommunications and
Internet-service concerns. The report is expected after
financial markets close Monday. The panel is holding the
guidelines closely, partly because Network Solutions expects
to make a secondary stock offering this week.
After a public-comment period, the draft guidelines will be
completed at the next board meeting of the nonprofit Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, in Singapore
on March 4.
Since 1992, Network Solutions has had an exclusive federal
contract to handle distribution of Internet addresses ending in
".com," ".net," ".org," and ".edu." It charges $70 for the first
two years of registration and $35 annually thereafter. In
1998, the company registered approximately 1.9 million new
Internet addresses, nearly double the 960,000 in 1997. Last
fall, the federal government began the process of opening up
the domain-naming market, granting ICANN the authority to
hammer out a plan.
The domain-naming system is critical to a Web browser's
ability to find a site on the vast Web or an e-mail message's
ability to find its way around the world. Any foul-up could
cause major Internet bottlenecks. ICANN by the end of
March will pick five companies to test reliability of a
competitive system.
Among potential competitors, the 89 companies constituting
the Internet Council of Registrars are looking for ways to
augment other businesses. The council includes Deutsche
Telekom AG, New Jersey's IDT Corp. and France Telecom
Internet-service unit Transpac.
Chairman Ken Stubbs noted that many companies realize
domain registration may not be as lucrative in the future. "As
more and more people get into this market and more domain
names are introduced, this will become a commodity
market," Mr. Stubbs said.
Later this year, ICANN also will decide how to expand the
domain-name market, adding so-called top-level domains --
for example, ".firm," ".shop" or ".web" -- to the pool that
includes ".com," ".net" and the like. |
