A name's a name, just not on Web

October 5th, 2002
By Chris Flores / The News & Advance

An Ericsson employee has patented what he sees as a cure for the current Internet naming system, which has spawned problems like Jerry Falwell's lawsuit over jerryfalwell.com and people stumbling onto pornographic sites that have innocent names like whitehouse.com.

Bedford County resident Ken Ryan believes that since only 2 percent of businesses were able to register their own names as Web sites over the past year, the naming system is placing an unreasonable restraint on commerce.

"Everybody accepts this is the way it has to be," said Ryan. "Why isn't the U.S. business community up in arms? They think this is the way it has to be."

His answer to the problem is his "business method patent" where multiple people or organizations could register for a Web name. A directory would appear on the computer screen when they typed in a Web site name, and a brief description of all the sites using that name would appear.

Ryan has worked for Ericsson for 23 years and has been in charge of writing the computer code and managing the company's Web site since Ericsson started it in 1993.

"It was really around then I discovered the problems I'm talking about," said Ryan.

He was working in Stockholm, Sweden, when he was registering Ericsson.com and between 50 and 75 other Ericsson names with different country "top-level" domains, like "Ericsson.it" in Italy. Ryan was just doing his job, but he knew that there were over 100 businesses named Ericsson in Stockholm alone.

"I felt it was really unfair that all these companies would not be able to get domain names," said Ryan.

But it doesn't need to be this way. Each Web address is actually a series of numbers called an Internet Protocol (IP) address.

"This domain name system is just something on top of (the IP address)," said Ryan. "It's just an overlay."

Theoretically, a name could be assigned to numerous IP addresses. Ryan's directory would allow people to choose which site they wanted, and might also include basic information about who owns the site and what kind of site it is, which will help aid the problem of stumbling onto a site you don't want to see.

"It's a small additional step," said Ryan, "but it would solve those problems."

Of course, this may lead to a proliferation of sites at coveted names like economy.com that could frustrate users. But that could be solved by making the directories searchable, said Ryan, and the only way regular Web searches would be affected is there might be more sites to search.

It would nice to be able to have a directory like Ryan is describing, said Rob Courtney, policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology, but it may cause other problems. The system would work for the World Wide Web, but not for other functions of the Internet, he said.

"The Web might work great, but then the global e-mail system is broken," said Courtney, explaining there are technical differences between the Web and Internet.

The Web uses an http "protocol," which is a way telecommunication points exchange messages. The http protocol uses IP addresses, so Ryan's system would work for finding multiple sites with the same name but different IP numbers, said Courtney.

However, different protocols are used for other Internet functions like e-mail, file-sharing, streaming video and voice/over IP. Ryan's system wouldn't work with these protocols, said Courtney. For example, e-mail uses a SMTP protocol that sends to domain names, not IP numbers.

Under Ryan's system there could be two Web sites called cars.com that both get e-mail at their addresses. So if there were two john@cars.com e-mail addresses, the message would not know which one to go to or might go to both.

Ryan addresses this problem in his patent continuation, which lists additions to the original patented idea. After the first cars.com, each extra site of the same name would pick up a number in the address like cars#1.com.

If someone typed cars.com into their browser, they would still go to the directory with all the cars.com sites, but if they knew they wanted to go to cars#4.com they could just type it in. This would also ensure that domain addresses would still be unique and wouldn't disrupt existing Internet protocols.

The protocol problem isn't necessarily something that couldn't be worked out by a good engineer, said Courtney, who didn't get to hear about the patent continuation solution.

"He has latched onto a problem that many people have complained about," said Ryan. "It's a good idea and would serve a purpose, but may have unintended consequences The techies have recognized this idea, and maybe there will be some kind of overhaul."

So who would pay for the changes? Who would administer the system? The answers to these questions involve the fundamentals of how the Internet works.

The Internet domain name system is run by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California non-profit organization. ICANN is supposed to regulate and create a competitive market for companies called registrars that sell domain names.

Currently, there are hundreds of registrars, which must be accredited by ICANN. Before ICANN, VeriSign had a monopoly on selling domains.

ICANN accredits different companies (or wholesalers) to oversee the registrars that sell sites at domains like ".org." ICANN also is in charge of coming up with new domains. It introduced seven new ones in November 2000, including: .biz, .aero, .museum, .coop, .info, .name and .pro.

An important part of the Internet is its root servers, which are database directories that list basic information about all the Web sites. Thirteen companies maintain root servers, which are constantly updated by the main root server and help the Internet run more smoothly.

Theoretically, the directory that Ryan has patented would be run by the companies that maintain the root servers. They would need software to run the directory, which brings a cost that Ryan proposes could be recovered by increasing registration fees paid by people and companies to registrars.

Cuts of the extra money paid to the registrars will filter up to ICANN and the root server companies. Part of the fee charged to people buying a Web site already goes to ICANN.

While some may object to increased fees, Ryan argues the increases could be small and that competition has brought fees way lower than they used to be. The average price of domain registration has dropped from around $50 to $10 as the market has become more competitive.

Lynchburg College computer science professor Conny Roussos said registrars would resist added fees.

"Enough people aren't going to agree with it and there are other solutions," said Roussos.

Roussos and Courtney believe search engines like Google do a good job at finding businesses that don't have their company name as a domain. That doesn't mean the system is fair, argues Ryan.

"Ask any business about the value of name recognition," said Ryan. "Having the ability to identify the name you have built up goodwill with is vital."

The creation of new top-level domains is also opening up more opportunities to get Web addresses, said Courtney, and there's no reason there couldn't be more created.

"People have thrown around the idea," said Courtney, "that lets throw out so many top-level domains that it doesn't matter which one you're on. That's a totally viable answer, and you don't have to upgrade anything."

The United States laws recognize there can be multiple uses for a trademark, said Ryan. So why would a Web name - which amounts to a worldwide trademark because only one person or company can use it - not be recognized as having multiple uses, especially for a basic name like plumber.com?

Ryan has contacted his federal representatives and wants them to ask the Federal Trade Commission to look at whether the current naming system is a violation of antitrust laws. The commission could ask ICANN to consider the patented directory idea.

Roussos said the Internet community prefers to keep governments away from any regulation of the Internet, and other countries might not like the idea of the U.S. government trying to impose regulations on an international system.

"Trying to get the FTC to force the Internet powers that be to do something is probably a losing effort," he said.

Even if Ryan's idea is unworkable now, he should bounce it off other technologists, said Courtney. The evolution of ideas like this, produced by people in their spare time that want to see the Internet and World Wide Web work better, has spurred all the great developments of the system.

"This is in the best traditions of the Internet, guys like this," said Courtney.