Congress Petitioned by ADNS and Other Inclusive Namespace TLD Operators To Examine Internet Issues.

Business/High-Tech Editors

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 8, 2001

Congress has been petitioned to examine issues related to the impending recommendation of seven new Top Level Domains (TLDs) by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to the Department of Commerce. The petition warns members of Congress that ICANN's action could destabilize the Internet by introducing conflicts into the name space. The results are already apparent with others taking their lead and introducing colliders on their own. A collider is a top-level domain that is already operated by some other manager. This introduces duplicate names on the internet.

The letter can be found at www.pacificroot.com/collider. A list of signatories can be found at www.pacificroot.com/collider/published.shtml (where support is still growing).

Congress has been further requested to ask the Small Business Administration to intervene before an entire category of small businesses is destroyed. In the petition, sent to each member of Congress and The President, petitioners state that ICANN is recommending an action that amounts to "the regulatory taking of the business products of businesses by a department of the United States Government, namely the Department of Commerce (DoC)."

Among the TLDs recommended to DoC by ICANN is ".BIZ". This TLD is the business product of AtlanticRoot Network, Inc. (ARNI - www.biztld.net), a Georgia Corporation that operates "The .BIZ TLD Registry." ICANN's proposal, if approved by the Department of Commerce, would effectively take .BIZ from ARNI and disenfranchise thousands of .BIZ customers. Furthermore, it would set a precedent that would allow ICANN to take away hundreds of other small TLD registry/registrar businesses and affect thousands of e-commerce businesses using .BIZ and other TLDs, as well as their vendors and support service providers. AGN Domain Name Services, Inc (ADNS) is also part of the Inclusive Namespace and has managed the top level domains EARTH, USA and Z for seven years

The top-level domain .BIZ as well as EARTH, USA and Z operate in the Internet's "Inclusive Name Space," which resolves all known non-colliding TLDs. ICANN was formed in 1998 to solicit, evaluate and approve new TLDs for the U.S. Government "root," a subset of the Internet. ICANN has chosen not to recognize the existence of other root server systems or TLDs.

The petitioners, many of whom are "Inclusive Name Space" TLD managers and domain registrants, asked Congress to work with the Department of Commerce to prevent the entry by DoC of the duplicate version of .BIZ into the U.S. Government Root and to direct ICANN to avoid selecting conflicting TLDs.

ICANN's application process was also criticized. ARNI, as well as the vast majority of TLD managers, did not apply to ICANN so that they would not subject themselves to a flawed system that refuses to acknowledge their pre-existence.

ADNS (www.adns.net) owns and operates the top-level domains EARTH, USA and Z and is part of the Inclusive Namespace.