The DNS should not be used as the Internet Directory

Sadly perhaps, the DNS is being used as the Internet Directory.

Now in society names are very dynamic things. Exactly like the organisations,
good and services they name.

i.e Organisations come and go. Trading names, product names, service names,
come, sometimes get traded, and then, in the fullness or time or otherwise, go. 

The DNS is being used to describe this social namespace on the Internet
in its alterego role as the only directory we've managed to get deployed so
far on the Internet.

This alter ego role has its own imperatives, that, however much you
may not want to see it, have to be accomodated within the
Internet's DNS. First Come First served domain names assignments,
tradeable domain names, vanity domain names, and, yes, charges
for names, are all an inevitable part and parcel of this alter ego DNS issue
as far as I can tell.


Thanks,


   Geoff Huston



 

>If the DNA were to allow trading in domain names then the present policy
>that the domain name must bear a close relationship to the organisation
>name becomes worthless and must be abandoned. It essentially leads to open
>slather in the namespace and if you support that, it's your prerogative
>but I don't choose to.
>
>For DNS to have some utility it's important that names, once assigned
>tend to represent the same organisation, that there not be too great a
>proportion of names assigned but unusable (undelegated or technically
>not functioning), and that different names should tend to represent
>different organisations.
>
>Open slather, domain trading and vanity domains tend to oppose that ideal.
>
>Nick.
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