US Domain -- County Delegations

Alan Barrett barrett at daisy.ee.und.ac.za
Thu Jul 27 12:12:57 UTC 1995


> If you have a city-based domain structure, then you have the problem
> of the address changing (or should change [...]

For some reason that I have never understood, whenever the idea of
geographical domain names is mentioned, many people assume a restrictive
scheme in which folk will be forced (or at least encouraged) to rename
if they move.

There is a spectrum of geographical domain naming schemes.  At the
restrictive end of the spectrum are schemes that force you to register
a name associated with the area where you live or do business, and
force you to relinquish your old domain name and register a new one if
you move to a different geographical area.  At the permissive of the
spectrum are schemes that permit you to register domain names that are
associated with geographical areas that you have never even visited,
much less lived in.

I happen to think that a fairly permissive geographical scheme makes
sense.  Let folk register theirname.country if they have a big
enough presence in that country to satisfy whatever requirements
are imposed by the country domain administrator (national
companies and large universities would probably qualify).  Let
them register theirname.province.country if they have a big enough
presence in that province/state to satisfy the requirements
of the provincial/state domain administrator (medium sized
companies and most universities would probably qualify). Otherwise
let them register theirname.district.province.country or
theirname.city.province.country if they live or have a business
presence in the relevant district/county/town/city.  Let the
city authorities create a suburb.city.province.country level if
they want to.  Let sufficiently large, well-known or important
geographical areas register higher up in the hierarchy than might
otherwise be appropriate (for example, suburb.province.country
instead of suburb.city.province.country, or city.country instead
of city.province.country).  Run all these in parallel, so
that folk can choose between theirname.city.province.country
and theirname.county.province.country if both domains are
appropriate. Permit folk to keep their domain name if they move out
of the area in which it was registered.  Permit them to register in
districts/cities where they don't live, at the discretion of the
district domain administrator (for example, allowing folk who don't
live in Hollywood to register theirname.hollywood.ca.us might lead
to scaling problems, but allowing folk who don't live in Izotsha to
register theirname.izotsha.kzn.za is much less likely to lead to scaling
problems).

--apb (Alan Barrett)



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