Alternative Visions for the DNS

In 1994, U.S. President Clinton stated that the commercialization of the internet was a “top priority” for his administration. The domain name system (DNS), which was developed to deal with the growing unwieldiness of the commercial internet, was an early battleground in shaping the values of early internet governance policies. The system would include highly sought after addresses in generic top-level domains (gTLDS) that ended in .com, .gov, .org, .edu, and so on. Below this were second-level domains and country codes which ended web addresses in sequences like .uk, .jp, .ca, etc. This model raised legal and economic questions about trademarks, intellectual property, and the global distribution of addresses on top level domains. Technical experts were wary of the limitations of the proposed system, particularly given the potential to expand the number of gTLDs. While many groups responded to U.S. governance policy, a number of non-profit associations were particular vocal in their critique, most notably the Internet Council of Registrars (CORE), the International Ad Hoc Committee (IAHC), and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) represented by Jon Postel. As the internet transitioned from a network used primarily by government and educational entities to a mass medium, there was a potential for revolutionary modes of communication, information sharing, education, creative expression, and a revolutionary, de-centralized structure of governance. The DNS debate resulted instead in support of predictable structures of power and a failure to realize that potential

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