Wednesday, August 11, 1999

Technology Consortium Pursues Takeover of '.edu' Domain By JEFFREY R. YOUNG Academics want to police their own portion of cyberspace. So says the academic-technology consortium EDUCAUSE, which is continuing its effort to take over administration of Internet addresses ending in ".edu." At stake is who has the right to use the ".edu" extension, which has become an important branding mark for college and university Web sites. Under the current rules, only "four-year, degree-granting colleges and universities" can A Network Solutions spokeswoman says the company uses a "fairly intensive screening process" to determine whether a registrant qualifies for a ".edu" address. register for ".edu" addresses. Some academic leaders would like the rules changed to allow two-year institutions to use the extension as well, while others worry that without more careful policing, unscrupulous companies could use ".edu" addresses and mislead students. More than a year ago, EDUCOM, one of the two groups that later merged to form EDUCAUSE, sent a formal letter to the National Science Foundation asking to take over the ".edu" registration duties. At the time, the N.S.F. oversaw most Internet addresses in the United States, a duty it contracted to Network Solutions, Inc., in Herndon, Va. Since then, oversight of Internet addresses has passed to the U.S. Commerce Department, which is working with an international non-profit group -- the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN -- that hopes eventually to handle the duties by itself. EDUCAUSE officials have continued to press their case with the Commerce Department, says Mark Luker, a vice-president for the group. He says he expects the department to make a decision on the matter "in the near future." The Commerce officials responsible for making the decision could not be reached for comment. Internet addresses are more important than ever for colleges and universities, as more and more providers move to deliver courses entirely over computer networks. Plenty of community colleges, companies, and other entities that don't qualify for the ".edu" extension have applied for the addresses anyway, however. And some of them have succeeded in getting the coveted addresses. For the time being, Network Solutions is still running the registration process for ".edu" addresses. Cheryl Regan, a spokeswoman, says the company uses a "fairly intensive screening process" to determine whether a registrant qualifies for an address with the extension. However, if the process works as Ms. Regan describes, company officials simply ask whether the registrant is a four-year degree-granting institution, and do not verify the response with an independent source. More than 1,500 attempts to register ".edu" addresses are made each month, she says, and fewer than 10 per cent of those requests are granted. "I guess it is possible that there have been errors," Ms. Regan says, but she points out that "the Internet community is pretty watchful" about reporting abuses. If the company becomes aware that a ".edu" address has been registered improperly, "we would investigate further," she says. "If they don't qualify, we would remove the registration." As part of Network Solutions' original agreement with the science foundation, the company registers ".edu" addresses without charge, as a public service to the community. Registrations for other Internet addresses, such as those in ".com," ".net," and ".org" domains, cost $70 for the first two years, and $35 for each additional year. EDUCAUSE -- which itself has a ".edu" address, although it is not a college of any sort -- says it would also register ".edu" addresses for free, and it would be more careful about checking whether registrants qualified for the addresses. "There have been periodic reports that some institutions that are not in higher education are admitted to the '.edu' domain," says Mr. Luker, though he adds that in cases he knows of, the address were later retracted. "That's one of the reasons why we would like our own community to police our own domain space." EDUCAUSE is open to extending the ".edu" domain to include two-year institutions, he says. "If we're going to represent the community of higher education in the U.S., we should certainly include two-year colleges as well," he says. Jacqueline Zelman, a vice-provost and the chief information officer for Miami-Dade Community College, says she supports EDUCAUSE's efforts. "The '.edu' makes finding us very easy," she says. Her college, like some other community colleges, managed to register a ".edu" domain, even though it is a two-year institution. The college is supposed to end its Internet address with ".cc.fl.us," indicating a community college in Florida in the United States -- but that doesn't exactly slide off the tongue. Background stories from The Chronicle: Change Proposed in Control of '.edu' Internet Addresses (2/13/98) EDUCOM Offers to Oversee '.edu' Internet Addresses (1/16/98) Is the Internet Becoming a Bonanza for Diploma Mills? (12/19/97) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article