[kictanet] Fwd: Washington Post: Web industry officials balk at domain expansion plan

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[1]http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/web-industry-officials-b
alk-at-domain-expansion-plan/2013/07/14/c69dcda4-ea69-11e2-a301-ea5a8116d211_
story.html?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffer4db6b&utm_
medium=twitter

Web industry officials balk at domain expansion plan

By [2]Craig Timberg, Published: July 14

A plan to dramatically expand the [3]number of possible Web addresses —
by adding more than 1,000 new domains such as “.buy,” “.casino” and
“.gay” — could cause widespread disruption to Internet operations, say
some industry officials.

Efforts to augment existing domains such as “.com” and “.gov” have been
underway for several years and are entering a critical new phase as
industry officials meet at an international conference that began
Sunday in Durban, South Africa. By summer’s end, the new domains could
be going live at a pace of 20 or more each week.

The plan has touched off a scramble among investors eager to gain
control of the virgin Internet real estate, potentially worth billions
of dollars in annual licensing fees. But a vocal group of critics is
calling the speed and scale of the expansion reckless, given its
possible impact on the Internet’s global infrastructure, which relies
on interactions among computer networks owned by companies,
universities and individual users.

Particularly troubling is the possibility of widespread “name
collisions” that could happen when domains used by internal corporate
computer systems — such as “.corp” or “.home” — get assigned to the Web
more broadly. This could cause systems to fail, blocking access to
e-mail or other internal programs, and also could open sensitive
information to theft, some experts say.

“This could affect a million enterprises,” said Danny McPherson, chief
security officer for Verisign, which is based in Reston and manages
several of the most popular existing domains. “It could absolutely
break things.”

McPherson and other security experts say the nonprofit group that
oversees the designation of Web addresses, the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (usually known by its acronym, [4]ICANN),
has not done enough study on the impact of the new domain names and
does not have procedures in place to respond quickly if systems
malfunction. Among those posing risk could be domains such as “.med” or
“.center” that might be critical to the functioning of medical systems
or emergency-response networks.

Similar concerns have been expressed by the Association of National
Advertisers, which represents hundreds of major companies, and the
Internet commerce site PayPal, which issued a letter in March saying,
“The potential for malicious abuse is extraordinary, [and] the
incidental damage will be large even in the absence of malicious
intent.”

Defenders of the plan have called such fears overblown, arguing that
the potential problems have been long understood and will be resolved
before new domains are approved. Because the new domains will be
released gradually, over the course of months, there will be time to
manage problems as they arise, said Jeffrey Moss, chief security
officer for ICANN.

“It’s not like it’s a runaway train without recourse,” Moss said.
“We’re not going to do anything that harms the security or stability of
the Internet.”

[5]U.S. officials who oversee Web security issues through the Commerce
Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration
expressed confidence in the management of the domain program, issuing a
statement saying, “We would expect these issues to be discussed and
resolved within the ICANN multistakeholder process.”

Whoever wins control of the new domains will be allowed to sell
licensing rights for the resulting new Web addresses, typically for
annual fees, with a portion going to fund ICANN, which is based in
Southern California. Just bidding for a domain costs $185,000.

[6]Donuts Inc., an investment group that made the largest number of
bids, with 307, said Verisign’s criticism of the process for launching
the new domains was a result of self-interest. The company controls the
popular “.com” and “.net” domains — giving it a degree of market power
that could be diluted if new ones gain widespread acceptance.

“ICANN was created in large part to break Verisign’s monopoly over
domain names,” Donuts spokesman Mason Cole said in a statement. “Now
that the organization is on the verge of achieving that goal, it’s not
surprising that Verisign is uncomfortable.”

Verisign officials say they support the program for adding new domains
but believe the rollout should proceed more cautiously than currently
planned.

The stakes are high in an era when a large and growing share of the
world’s economic activity happens over the Internet. Even traditional
brick-and-mortar businesses use online systems to communicate, manage
inventories and interact with customers. Many also count on the
security of networked computer systems to protect lucrative
intellectual property and other valuable strategic information.

Moss, the ICANN security chief, acknowledged that some internal
corporate systems will malfunction as new domains are created, and he
said it would be the responsibility of company officials to resolve
these problems.

“We want everything to work, and we’re going to try to make everything
work, but we can’t control everybody’s networks on the planet,” he
said.

Moss said the number of domains likely to cause problems is a “really,
really small number.”

But critics have said it is irresponsible for ICANN to approve new
domains before it knows the extent of the problems they would create
and has plans in place to fix them. The cost of repairing systems — or
the loss of security — would be borne by private companies that in most
cases have little to gain from the hundreds of new Internet domains.

In addition to expressing such security concerns, corporate leaders
have been complaining that the sheer number of new domains will cause a
sharp rise in fraud and abuse as criminals buy up Web addresses
intended to deceive consumers. Already, many companies are attempting
to defend against this by acquiring many different Web addresses that
include their corporate names. But that will become far more difficult,
they say, with hundreds of new domains, including “.corp,” “.inc” and
“.sucks.”

“If everything ran perfectly, this would extraordinarily transform the
Internet,” said Dan Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association
of National Advertisers. “There is every reason to believe that, as of
now, there could be serious problems.”

References

1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/web-industry-officials-balk-at-domain-expansion-plan/2013/07/14/c69dcda4-ea69-11e2-a301-ea5a8116d211_story.html?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffer4db6b&utm_medium=twitter
2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/craig-timberg/2011/05/17/AFM2rbAH_page.html
3. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/donuts-incs-major-play-for-new-web-domain-names-raises-eyebrows/2012/09/24/c8745362-f782-11e1-8398-0327ab83ab91_story.html
4. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/icann-set-to-release-list-of-new-domain-proposals/2012/06/12/gJQAbVoPXV_story.html
5. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/28/AR2011022803719.html
6. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/donuts-inc-and-its-domain-duel/2012/09/25/352c3e44-074a-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_video.html
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