RFC 2240

A Legal Basis for Domain Name Allocation

📅 published November 1997, from ietf

Okay bestie, let's get into RFC 2240 💖 It's an Informational doc from November 1997, written by Owain Vaughan of Vaughan Enterprises (the header just says "O. Vaughan" 🙈). The title block doesn't list anything it obsoletes or updates, so it's a fresh little discussion starter ✨

Status of This Memo 📋

This memo gives information to the Internet community. It is not an Internet standard of any kind 🌸 Distribution is unlimited, so share it with everyone 💅

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1997). All Rights Reserved. 🦋

Table of Contents 🧚

   1.   Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

   2.   Overview of the domain space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

   3.   Possible solutions to name exhaustion  . . . . . . . . . . . 3

   4.   Proposed creation of new SLDs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
   4.1   The world is not flat so why should domains be? . . . . . . 4
   4.2   The case for legal names  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
   4.3   Allocation of legal SLDs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
   4.4   Allocation of miscellaneous SLDs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
   4.5   Identifiers in non-ASCII languages  . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
   5.   Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

   6.   References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

   7.   Authors' Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

   8.   Full Copyright Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

1. Introduction 🌷

The point of this memo is to get people talking about the problems with running out of top level domain space, and the clashes that happen when lots of organisations want the same name 😬 Nothing in here is meant as a standard. The hope is that a general consensus forms about the right fix, which could eventually lead to standards 💜

2. Overview of the domain space 🌍

Right now the domain space is a hierarchical, tree-shaped namespace with several top level domains (TLDs), and subdomains sitting beneath them. The initial TLDs and why they were picked are documented in [1] 📚

The TLDs are split up into generic top-level domains (gTLDs) and two-letter ISO 3166 country domains, one for every country that has Internet connectivity 🌈 Who gets allocated what under these TLDs is totally up to the registry for that TLD. A registry can add more levels of structure, or just hand out domains in a "flat" way 🍓

Here's the example, it's giving diagram energy:

        +-----+         +----+                       +----+
        | COM |         | UK |                       | FR |
        +-----+         +----+                       +----+
           |             |  |                         |  |
    +---------+     +----+  +----+     +--------------+  +-----+
    | VAUGHAN |     | AC |  | CO |     | UNIV-AVIGNON |  | AXA |
    +---------+     +----+  +----+     +--------------+  +-----+
       |              |        |              |             |
   +------+    +---------+  +----------+   +-----+      +------+
   | UNIX |    | NEWPORT |  | CITYDESK |   | SOL |      | MAIL |
   +------+    +---------+  +----------+   +-----+      +------+
                    |            |
                 +----+       +-----+
                 | NS |       | FTP |
                 +----+       +-----+


 1. Flat gTLD     2. Heirarchical country      3. Flat country

So in the example, the gTLDs are flat by nature, since organisations get names directly under the TLD 💅 The country domains are a whole different story. Their allocation policy can vary a lot from country to country, and it really does ✨ Some choose a functional sub-structure that copies the gTLDs, some go geographical, and some have no sub-structure at all 🦋

In the first case the organisation is clearly commercial, because it's under "COM" 💼 But there's no info about which country it's based in. In the third case we know it's based in France (FR), but without looking at the actual organisation name we can't tell what kind of organisation it is 🤷‍♀️ In the second case we know both organisations are in the UK, and by following the hierarchy we can work out that the first is an academic organisation (AC) and the second is commercial (CO) 🎓

Flexible is cute, but it has a downside. Not enforcing a strict hierarchy can use up names in the generic space and cause fights between organisations that both have a real claim to the same name 😭

3. Possible solutions to name exhaustion 💡

With a system this flexible, there are lots of ways to stop the name space from running out 🧠 One idea from [2] is to create more gTLDs, so organisations with the same name can be registered uniquely under different TLDs (FIRM, STORE, WEB, ARTS, REC, INFO and NOM). But this has several disadvantages, as we'll see:

a) It confuses users about which TLD belongs to which organisation 🙃 For example, MCDONALDS.COM might be the fast food corporation and MCDONALDS.FIRM might be a law firm. How is a user supposed to know which is which?

b) To avoid that confusion, big corporations will just reserve every variation of their name, like IBM.COM, IBM.FIRM, IBM.STORE and so on 😤 So we haven't solved the exhaustion or conflict problems. We've honestly made them worse 💀

c) Names belonging to trademark holders, or other legally held names, can still be grabbed by anybody, which leads to possible conflicts ⚠️

4. Proposed creation of new SLDs 👑

With those problems in mind, creating new gTLDs that just overlap the existing ones is not a good idea 🙅‍♀️ The domain name system is hierarchical, so it makes more sense to expand the existing structure than to build several duplicate structures on top of it 🧩

4.1 The world is not flat so why should domains be? 🌏

Now that the Internet is a truly global medium, the idea that only one commercial entity, one organisation, and one network provider can have a given name seems impossible 🙄 That's exactly where the present system is stuck. Disputes over who "owns" or "deserves" a certain name keep piling up, and more and more of them end in unnecessary and expensive legal action 💸 A domain name service shouldn't have to deal with this, but under the present system it seems unavoidable 😩

This proposal allows country domain names that relate to legally registered names in the country where the organisation is based, by building a functional hierarchy beneath the country TLD 🌟

It doesn't try to get rid of gTLDs. Instead, the idea is to look for a legal name first, and then, if you want, add a generic name alongside it. That way, if a dispute ever happens, the organisation has a legally held name that nobody else can claim 🫶

This proposal has several advantages:

a) Deciding which names belong to which organisation is no longer the job of the domain name registry. It becomes the job of the company registration authority in each country 🏛️ So disputes over names shouldn't happen, because every name is unique within its legal company title 💖

b) Since all names are unique, desirable names shouldn't get used up (on purpose or by accident) by other groups. Every owner of a legally held company name automatically has the right to the matching domain name 👑

That's the first half of the tea ☕ Part 2 is coming next bestie, with the legal SLD allocation, the miscellaneous SLDs, non-ASCII names, security, references and the author's address 🌈

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1997). All Rights Reserved. 💖

Okay so, the legal bit 🎀 You're allowed to copy this document and share it with others, and translations are totally fine too. You can also write derivative works that comment on or explain it, or that help people implement it. You can prepare, copy, publish and distribute those, in whole or in part, with no restriction of any kind, as long as the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all of those copies and derivative works.

However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice or the references to the Internet Society or other Internet organizations. The exceptions are when it's needed for developing Internet standards, in which case the copyright procedures defined in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or when it's required to translate it into languages other than English. 🌸

The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns. Forever and ever, bestie 💜✨

This document and the information contained herein is provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. 💀

That last bit is the disclaimer, and it's giving "use at your own risk, no promises, sorry not sorry" energy. Read it, bestie, it's important 🙈
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