CORPORATE VIEW

A Rose By Any Other Name May Get You Sued

by Robert Moskowitz

Resolving a technical LAN problem is trivial compared to setting an administrative direction--like what to name your servers. Remember how awful the task of naming your servers used to be? Spending time with an internal Domain Name Server (DNS) or X.500 structure is even more demanding of patience and compromise. Stay tuned, because the world is just now learning the consequences of a successful--in terms of usage--global naming system.

From 1987 to 1993, the ANSI Registration Authority Committee delved into the issue of "Intellectual Rights" in registered X.400 and X.500 names. The committee tried all sorts of methods, including an elaborate waiting period scheme with public review of registration application names. At this point, the number of "MHSMD" registrations was fewer than 500. From 1983 to 1987, the Internet pioneers developed and implemented the Domain Name System. It side-stepped the issue of "Intellectual Rights" in registering domain names, opting for a first-come, first-served basis. Whether it was the simplicity of getting a domain name, or the value of having a public domain name compared with a public X.400 or X.500 name, by the end of 1994 more than 29,000 names were registered in the .com tree of the DNS alone. Last year saw only one major law suit on DNS names--the mtv.com suit--but for the most part, the first-come, first-served approach worked.

This year has been a year of change for the Internet. Net watcher Mike Walsh has been studying the growth of the commercial domains on the Internet. His latest observation is this: As of the end of July, 75,000 entries were in the .com domain alone, up from 29,000 at the end of 1994 (See http://www.webcom.com/~walsh for more). Mark Lottor released his latest results from the Internet's most basic and longest continuing measurement of its size, the Domain Survey. Lottor reports that .com domains are in 54 countries, all assigned on this first-come, first-served basis. (The data is available in the zone directory on ftp.nw.com, or http://www.nc.com/.) With this influx of new users, there's been a shift in attitudes about domain names with a corresponding increase in lawsuits over them. The most noteworthy was the recent RICO law suit over the knowledgenet.com domain that was settled out of court.

Laying Down the Law This recent shift away from taking what is not in use to fighting for a name is to be expected as a growing Internet phenomenon. It has already reached the point where the InterNIC has a domain dispute resolution policy statement out for public review (ftp://rs.internic.net/policy/InterNIC/InterNIC-domain-1.txt). To understand this turn of events, it's necessary to see how domain names and corporate names or trademarks differ.

A domain name is a convenient reference name that people can readily remember and type. For this reason, simple and common names are preferred. Thus, few companies are interested in using their complete corporate names; they're too long and easy to mistype. Even relatively short names are easy to mistype. Try www.micros0ft.com as an example (that is a zero after the s) and see where you end up. In the old days of the Internet, the short name choice was important for easy typing in character-based FTP clients. Today, it's an important marketing tool.

The Marketing Name Game I had an interesting conversation with a marketing person recently. Marketing people see names as a way to keep the customer thinking about your product. Simple, catchy nam es are important, and they need to bridge all media. In many cases, marketing is demanding a separate domain name for each product line. This is to keep the names short and to get around the lack of good Web indexing tools. They rightly view corporate names as too long and complex for people to remember or type in as a URL.

The lawyers with whom I've had this discussion are taking a different view of domain names. They are principally concerned with protecting trademarks in a new media. Many trademarks are aggressively protected, and the lawyers are asking for full DNS searches to make sure that a given mark is not being misappropriated on the Internet. They are also concerned that a domain name could constitute prior use and further complicate the task of searching for the usability of a new trademark (see http://www.uspto.gov/web/trad_reg_info/basic_facts.html). They are not concerned about registering the full corporate name, as few corporations have registered their name in every state, let alone in every country.

Even though many of these people are aware that the .com domain is international in scope, they view it as subject to U.S. law and as such, fair game for the U.S. court system. It may be in the courts where domain name ownership will eventually be settled.

So how do you, the corporate networkologist, set your corporate Internet naming? As much as it hurts me, I must advise you to join the feeding frenzy and get something registered as soon as possible. Two rules should direct your efforts. First rule: The InterNIC now requires that a domain application include two live, reachable DNS servers. So if you're not connected, you will have to contract with someone to maintain your domain name primary and secondary. This is relatively easy to change at a later date if your first choice of DNS provider does not work out for you. Second rule: The InterNIC tends to run with a two-week backlog. This means that upward of 5,000 pending requests can be ahead of yours and one may be the same name you're requ esting! Work with your marketing people to choose a name that works for them and is not only available, but not likely to be claimed soon.

Robert Moskowitz is a software systems specialist at Chrysler Corp., Detroit, Mich., and a member of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB). He can be reached on MCI Mail at 385-8921.

October 15, 1995