IANA POLICY ON DELEGATED DOMAINS The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is responsible for the overall coordination and management of the Domain Name System, and especially the delegation of portions of the name space called top-level domains. Most of these top-level domains are two-letter country codes taken from the ISO standard 3166. A central Internet Registry (IR) has been selected and designated to handled the bulk of the day-to-day administration of the Domain Name System. Applications for new top-level domains (for example, country code domains) are handled by the IR with consultation with the IANA. The central IR is INTERNIC.NET. This memo describes the policy concerns involved when a new top-level domain is established usually by delegating its management to a "designated manager" for the top-level domain. Also mentioned are concerns raised when it is necessary to change the delegation of an established domain from one party to another. Most of these same concerns are relevant when a sub-domain is delegated and in general the principles described here apply recursively to all delegations of the Internet DNS name space. The major concern in selecting a designated manager for a domain is that it be able to carry out the necessary responsibilities, and have the ability to do a equitable, just, honest, and competent job. 1) The key requirement from the IANA's point of view is that for each domain there be a designated manager for supervising that domain's name space. In the case of top-level domains that are country codes this means that there is a manager that supervises the domain names and operates the domain name system in that country. The manager must, of course, be on the Internet. There must be Internet Protocol (IP) connectivity to the nameservers and email connectivity to the management and staff of the manager. There must be an administrative contact and a technical contact for each domain. For top-level domains that are country codes at least the administrative contact must reside in the country involved. 2) These designated authorities are trustees for the delegated domain, and have a duty to serve the community. The designated manager is the trustee of the top-level domain for both the nation, in the case of a country code, and the global Internet community. Concerns about 'rights' and 'ownership' of domains are inappropriate. It is appropriate to be concerned about 'responsibilities' and 'service' to the community. 3) The designated manager must be equitable to all groups in the domain that request domain names. This means that the same rules are applied to all requests, all requests must be processed in a non-discriminatory fashion, and academic and commercial (and other) users are treated on an equal basis. No bias shall be shown regarding requests that may come from customers of some other business related to the manager -- e.g., no preferential service for customers of a particular data network provider. There can be no requirement that a particular mail system (or other application), protocol, or product be used. There are no requirements on subdomains of top-level domains beyond the requirements on higher-level domains themselves. That is, the requirements in this memo are applied recursively. In particular, all subdomains shall be allowed to operate their own domain name servers, providing in them whatever information the subdomain manager sees fit (as long as it is true and correct). 4) That significantly interested parties in the domain agree that the designated manager is the appropriate party. The IANA tries to have any contending parties reach agreement among themselves, and generally takes no action to change things unless all the contending parties agree; only in cases where the designated manager has substantially mis-behaved would the IANA step in. However it is appropriate for interested parties to have some voice in selecting the designated manager. There are two cases where the IANA and the central IR may establish a new top-level domain and delegate only a portion of it: (1) there are contending parties that cannot agree, or (2) the applying party may not be able to represent or serve the whole country. The later case sometimes arises when a party outside a country is trying to be helpful in getting networking started in a country -- this is sometimes called a "proxy" DNS service. The Internet DNS Names Review Board (IDNB), a committee established by the IANA, will act as a review panel for cases in which the parties can not reach agreement among themselves. The IDNB's decisions will be binding. 5) That the designated manager do a satisfactory job of operating the DNS service for the domain. That is, the actual management of the assigning of domain names, delegating subdomains and operating nameservers must be done with technical competence. This includes keeping the central IR (in the case of top-level domains) or other higher-level domain manager advised of the status of the domain, responding to requests in a timely manner, and operating the database with accuracy, robustness, and resilience. There must be a primary and a secondary nameserver that have IP connectivity to the Internet and can be easily checked for operational status and database accuracy by the IR and the IANA. 6) For any transfer of the designated manager trusteeship from one organization to another, the higher-level domain manager (the IANA in the case of top-level domains) must receive communications from both the old organization and the new organization that assure the IANA that the transfer in mutually agreed, and that the new organization understands its responsibilities. It is also very helpful for the IANA to receive communications from other parties that may be concerned or affected by the transfer. Jon Postel 21-Oct-93