In light of the recent decision by the United States government to “maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file” and ICANN’s recent decisions to add more gTLDs (including .xxx), and to renew VeriSign as the .net registry, readers may be interested in the just-published report of the National Research Council’s Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, Signposts in Cyberspace: The Domain Name System and Internet Navigation, which is available as a free PDF. A printed version can also be ordered.

“Signposts in Cyberspace” is a comprehensive policy-oriented examination of the Domain Name System in the broader context of Internet navigation. It is addressed to policy communities in the United States, other nations, and international agencies, whose decisions will affect the DNS’ future. The report contains a careful description of the development, current state, and future prospects of the technical system of the DNS and a complementary description of the development, current state, and policy issues of the framework of autonomous institutions that operate, administer, and set policy for it.

The policy topics that are addressed are:

• Governance of the DNS
• Management of the DNS
• Oversight and operation of the root name servers
• Regulation of generic top-level domains (gTLDs)
• Oversight of country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs)
• Resolution of conflicts over domain names
• Provision and protection of Whois data

Each of these issues is examined together with the principal alternatives that have been proposed to address it. The committee’s conclusions and recommendations about each issue are presented. They represent the consensus of fifteen highly diverse committee members—informed by the comments of 25 reviewers.

The descriptions in Chapters 2 and 3 of the evolution and current state of DNS governance and in Chapter 5 of the related policy topics provide a solid background for the consideration of the US government’s policy statement. The descriptions in the same chapters of gTLD selection should serve a similar role for consideration of ICANN’s gTLD decisions.

For example, on the subject of DNS governance, the report describes the evolution of the stewardship role of the Department of Commerce and identifies and evaluates the alternative institutions that could assume that role—an international agency, an international treaty organization, or a non-governmental organization, such as ICANN. It concludes that of the options, the transfer to ICANN of the stewardship role was the most realistic one currently on the table, but that before making such a transfer, Commerce should seek means to protect ICANN from undue political and commercial pressures and to provide some form of oversight of its performance. As we have just seen, Commerce has opted not to make the transfer at all—at least for now.

Chapter 4 on technology prospects for the DNS covers security and stability, as well as the internationalization of domain names, the linkage of the telephone addressing and DNS systems, and VeriSign’s SiteFinder service.

The broader context of Internet Navigation is addressed in Chapters 6, 7, and 8, which describe the evolution, current state, selected technology prospects, and policy issues concerning Internet navigational aids and services.

In addition to its target audience of policy makers, this report should help those concerned with Internet technology to appreciate the complex institutional framework within which the DNS operates and those concerned with its institutions to understand better the elegant architecture and operation of its technical system. It could also serve as a source book for courses in technology, telecommunications, and Internet policy.