In This Issue Mpls

This article reaffirms ICANN’s commitment to a single, authoritativepublic root for the Internet Domain Name System (DNS) and to themanagement of that unique root in the public interest according to poli-cies developed through community processes. This commitment isfounded on the technical and other advice of the community and is em-bodied in existing ICANN policy. The DNS is intended to provide a convenient means of referring to sitesavailable on the Internet. By offering users an easy-to-use and reliablemeans of unambiguously referring to Web sites, e-mail servers, and theInternet’s many other services, the DNS has helped the Internet achieveits promise as a global communications medium for commerce, re-search, education, and cultural and other expressive activities. The DNS is a globally distributed database of domain name (and other)information. One of its core design goals is that it reliably provides thesame answers to the same queries from any source on the public Inter-net, thereby supporting predictable routing of Internet communications.Achievement of that design goal requires a globally unique public namespace derived from a single, globally unique DNS root. Although the Internet allows a high degree of decentralized activities, co-ordination of the assignment function by a single authority is necessarywhere unique parameter values are technically required. Because of theuniqueness requirement, the content and operation of the DNS rootmust be coordinated by a central entity. Where central coordination is necessary, it should be performed by anorganization dedicated to serving the public interest and that acts ac-cording to policies developed through processes that are developedthrough the participation of affected stakeholders. Traditionally, the re-sponsibility for performing the central coordinating functions of theglobal Internet for the public good, including management of the uniquepublic DNS root, has been carried out by the Internet Assigned Num-bers Authority(IANA)[12]. ICANN’s core mission is to continue thework of the IANA in a more formalized and globally representativeframework, to ensure the views of all the Internet’s stakeholders aretaken into account in carrying out this public trust.T A Unique Root: continued T h e I n t e r n e t P r o t o c o l J o u r n a l1 6Over the past several years, some private organizations have establishedDNS roots as alternates to the authoritative root. Some uses of these al-ternate roots do not jeopardize the stability of the DNS. For example,some are purely private roots operating inside institutions and are care-fully insulated from the DNS. Others are purely experimental in the besttraditions of the Internet and are carefully managed so as not to inter-fere with the operation of the DNS. These both operate withincommunity-established norms. Frequently, however, these alternate roots have been established to sup-port top-level or pseudo-top-level domain name registries that areoperated for profit. Yet other alternate roots have been established bycertain individuals to protest the policies developed by the broader com-munity processes for management of the authoritative root, or toexpress their disinterest in participating in those processes. These alter-nate roots have not been launched through any ICANN consensusprocesses, so they have not been entered into the authoritative root man-aged by the IANA or ICANN. These alternate roots typically substitute insular concerns in place ofthe community-based processes that govern the management of the au-thoritative root. Their operators decide to include particular top-leveldomains in these alternate roots that have not been subjected to thetests of community support and conformance with consensus pro-cesses—coordinated by ICANN—that would allow their inclusion inthe authoritative root. These decisions of the alternate-root operatorshave been made without any apparent regard for the fundamental pub-lic-interest concern of Internet stability. The widespread use of activedomain names in these alternate roots could in fact impair the unique-ness of the authoritative name-resolution mechanism and hence thestability of the DNS. ICANN’s mandate to preserve stability of the DNS requires that it avoidencouraging the proliferation of these alternate roots that could causeconflicts and instability. This means that ICANN continues to adhere tocommunity-based processes in its decisions regarding the content of theauthoritative root. Within its current policy framework, ICANN cangive no preference to those who choose to work outside of these pro-cesses and outside of the policies engendered by this public trust. None of this precludes experimentation done in a manner that does notthreaten the stability of name resolution in the authoritative DNS. Re-sponsible experimentation is essential to the vitality of the Internet. Nordoes it preclude the ultimate introduction of new architectures that mayultimately obviate the need for a unique, authoritative root. But thetranslation of experiments into production and the introduction of newarchitectures require community-based approaches, and are not compat-ible with individual efforts to gain proprietary advantage.