10/30/02
Question 3
**Although Not
Necessarily in the Hands of ICANN**
In
a Capitalistic society, the mere murmur of the word “monopoly” immediately
raises red flags in the eyes of those who adhere to the ideas of free-market
and free-competition. A grossly
simplified summary of Capitalistic economic policy argues that only through
competition amongst businesses will consumers be protected against price gauging
at the hands of unmerciful businessmen.
Yet sometimes monopolies are beneficial to society—especially concerning
vital products such as water, gas, and communication systems. Arguably, the Domain Name System (DNS) is
another vital public utility, insomuch that the assurances of a monopoly outweigh
the benefits of free-competition. In
this paper, I will attempt to prove this by discussing the following:
1.
Explain
in general why monopolies on vital public utilities are necessary.
2.
Outline
the advantages of a monopoly on the domain name system (DNS) of the Internet.
3.
Outline
the disadvantages of a monopoly on the domain name system (DNS) of the
Internet.
4.
Outline
the advantages of having multiple services compete for control of the DNS.
5.
Outline
the disadvantages of having multiple services compete for control of the DNS.
6.
Attempt
to show that even though ICANN may not be a suitable monopoly on DNS, a
monopoly nonetheless is still more beneficial than competing services.
In
almost all societies, including capitalistic societies, there are situations
where a product is so crucial to the lives of the members of society that a
monopoly on that product is necessitated.
These products, called “public utilities,” include roadways, water, gas,
electricity, subways, and communication facilities, such as telephones and
telegraphs. Furthermore, if such a
product were unavailable it would severely affect public welfare.[1] It is more important that these products are
available, rather than they be at a lower cost that free competition
might produce. To a large extent,
vesting “the right of eminent domain” 1
into a signal company ensures that those utilities will be adequately available
to the public; for the company’s sole concern is to make sure the vital utility
is available.
ADVANTAGES OF A MONOPOLY ON DNS
Although the DNS of the Net
is perhaps not as vital to the public as water or electricity, the DNS can
arguably be considered “vital” in the same vein that telephone communication is
considered vital. DNS, however,
presents a different kind of problem than do telephone companies, for telephone
companies are more similar to ISPs. [2] Currently, there is no single monopoly on
telephone communication—there are competing companies such as AT&T, Sprint,
MCI, etc—just as there is no single monopoly on internet access providers. DNS is concerned with what happens after a
user connects to the Internet—the name by which he or she “calls”
webpages.
Lawrence Lessig points out
that “Just as there was a push toward convergence on a simple set of network
protocols, there will be a push toward convergence on a uniform set of rules to
govern network transactions.”[3] We can take this logic and apply it to
DNS—there needs to be a uniform set of rules that make sure there is only a
1-to-1 mapping of a domain name to a webpage and that the user can access this
webpage no matter to which DNS host the user is connected. (If you type in www.google.com, you will always get the search
page.) Vesting authority over the DNS
ensures that this important characteristic of the Net is present.
DISADVANTAGES OF A MONOPOLY ON DNS
As
with all monopolies, there are some disadvantages to giving a single
organization control of the DNS.
First of all, there is no
protection against price gauging that free-competition offers. The monopoly controlling DNS could
(theoretically) continually raise the price of registering a domain name and
the consumer would have no other company as an alternative.
Secondly,
by definition of a monopoly, no other organization exists that can readily step
in and take control of managing the DNS if the current monopoly is doing an
inadequate job. The free-market idea of
“survival of the fittest” to produce the best results is not applicable in the
case where only one organization is allowed control. Thus, there is a risk that if the monopoly seriously fails in
managing the DNS, then the entire DNS can come to a crashing halt, and that can
pose a grave danger to the existence of the Internet. A possible protection
against this is to have multiple outside organizations looking over the present
monopoly’s shoulder to make sure the monopoly is not doing anything fatal to
the DNS.
Competing
services for management of the DNS bring with them the benefits of a
free-market/free-competition society.
Price gauging can be protected against because there will be multiple
companies offering similar services.
Secondly, if one company proves to be inadequate in developing policies
to manage the DNS, there are other companies that can readily take
control.
Most
importantly, though, multiple competing services will theoretically make sure
that no single stake-holder in the Internet can continually influence policies
concerning the DNS. This is very
similar to how Congress works in the U.S Government. In the U.S. Congress, there are multiple “competing factions”
that try to enact legislation most beneficial to their specific interests, but
because these “factions” have to work together in order to get a resolution,
there needs to be compromise that (ideally) is the “most acceptable” solution
for the majority of the factions.
Multiple competing services for controlling the DNS will ensure that all
the “factions” dealing with the Net are heard and the final resolution will
hopefully be the “most acceptable” solution to all these factions.
Possibly
the most important purpose of the DNS, is the fact that there needs to be a
1-to-1 mapping of a domain name to a webpage no matter to what DNS host a user
is connected. How can there be such
assurance if there are multiple companies who have control over the DNS? Which organization’s decisions does the
Internet follow and how will the Net make sure it only follows one
decision?
In
the beginning of the Net, it was arguably beneficial that policies were
developed through a decentralized, unauthorized, chaotic process. The Net probably would not be what it is
today if it were not for this chaotic process.[4] But judging from the fact that the Net has
become an essential part to many people’s communication, this chaotic
policy-making process for such an important system as DNS would be inappropriate. It would be detrimental to the Net, for
example, if multiple policies governing domain names were implemented: If you were connected to one organization’s
DNS host and typed in www.google.com you might get a search page, but if you
were connected to a different organization’s DNS host and you typed the same
address, you might get a completely different page. This would be unacceptable.
Furthermore,
deregulatory efforts in the past have not been entirely successful. The 2000-2001 energy crisis in California is
an example of when a vital utility gets deregulated, there is a loss of
assurance that the vital product will be adequately available.[5]
CONCLUSION
In this paper, I have shown that the domain name system of the Internet has become a vital utility in using the Internet. The DNS is analogous to other certain vital utilities such as the telephone. Insomuch that the DNS is a vital utility, the assurance that it will always work necessitates that its control be under a single organization. How that organization is implemented, however, is a completely different subject (see Addendum: Concerning ICANN below). Multiple competing organizations for managing the DNS do have its benefits—such as protecting against price gauging and the effectiveness of developing “better” policy decisions—but the risks competing organizations bring—such as ambiguity on which policy to follow and no assurance that the DNS will be adequately present—outweigh these benefits.
ADDENDUM: CONCERNING ICANN
Currently, ICANN is the possessor of the monopoly on managing the DNS. The reader must bear in mind that this paper is not supporting the continuation of ICANN in controlling the DNS. This paper is strictly justifying the notion that a single monopoly is probably better than having multiple companies managing the DNS. The debate on whether or not ICANN is doing an adequate job in managing the DNS is a completely different debate, and one that I have chosen to steer clear of in this paper.
[1] “utility, business.” The Columbia Encyclopedia, 7th Ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/u1/utilpub.asp
[2] An analogy of the DNS problem to the telephone system would be if a caller said a person’s name into the telephone rather than dialing the callee’s 10-digit phone number. There would need to be some central organization, similar as DNS on the Net, that effectively maps a person’s name to his or her 10-digit phone number.
[3] Lawrence Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. 206 (1999)
[4] Post, David G. “Of Black Holes and Decentralized Law-Making in Cyberspace” http://www.temple.edu/lawschool/dpost/blackhole.html#N_1_
[5] Arguably, however, the California energy problems may not have been caused by deregulation itself, but how that deregulation was implemented.