Prior to the globalization of the Internet, its assignment of domain names was administered within the research and academic communities through the

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a standards organization that oversees global IP address allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System (DNS), media types, and other Inte ...

(IANA). As the Internet grew to a global service, in the 1990s, there was increasing pressure to add more "generic" top-level domain names, beyond the initial set, such as .com and .org and the two-letter country codes. Extensive debate within the Internet operational community did not resolve this. Finally, a composite group was formed, to create a proposal for the enhancement. The International Ad Hoc Committee (IAHC) was composed of members named by a variety of Internet and International sponsoring organizations. The IAHC had a limited charter: "The IAHC is an international multi-organization effort for specifying and implementing policies and procedures relating to iTLD." ('international' TLDs are now called 'generic' TLDs, or gTLDs.)

Sponsoring Organizations

Internet Society The Internet Society (ISOC) is an American nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 1992 with local chapters around the world. Its mission is "to promote the open development, evolution, and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people ...

(ISOC) *

(IANA) *

Internet Architecture Board The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) is "a committee of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and an advisory body of the Internet Society (ISOC). Its responsibilities include architectural oversight of IETF activities, Internet Standards ...

(IAB) *

Federal Networking Council Informally established in the early 1990s, the Federal Networking Council (FNC) was later chartered by the US National Science and Technology Council's Committee on Computing, Information and Communications (CCIC) to continue to act as a forum for ...

(FNC) *

International Telecommunication Union The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Unio ...

(ITU) *

International Trademark Association The International Trademark Association is a global association of brand owners and professionals dedicated to trademarks and complementary intellectual property to foster consumer trust, economic growth, and innovation, and committed to building ...

(INTA) *

World Intellectual Property Organization The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO; french: link=no, Organisation mondiale de la propriété intellectuelle (OMPI)) is one of the 15 specialized agencies of the United Nations (UN). Pursuant to the 1967 Convention Establishi ...

(WIPO) Members of IAHC: *Sally Abel *Dave Crocker *Perry E. Metzger *Jun Murai *Hank Nussbacher *Robert Shaw *Donald M. Heath *Geoff Huston *George Strawn *David W. Maher *Albert Tramposch *Committee outside counsel was Stuart Levi

Results

The IAHC produced a draft proposal with a number of administrative recommendations, beyond the set of candidate gTLD names. These included: * Use of the term generic topic-level domain (gTLD), rather than "international" TLD * A registrary/registrar model, as currently employed under

ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is an American multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces ...

* A policy for resolution of trademark-related domain name disputes that became the basis for the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) that is currently part of

policies. * Notification of name assignments prior to issuance, in case of trademark concerns The group's work culminated in a "Memorandum of Understanding". It describes a procedure of allocation and administration for domain names, specifically top-level domains. The "Generic Top Level Domain Memorandum of Understanding" (gTLD-MoU) was open to signature by any organization, with approximately 226 groups doing so. The organization was dissolved on 1 May 1997. Its effort was subsumed under the authority of

. When the U.S. government's activities concerning Internet Domain Name administration issued its preliminary
Green Paper
in 1998, the efforts of the IAHC were not referenced. However the final "White Paper" gave credit to the IAHC efforts: "The IAHC issued a draft plan in December 1996 that introduced unique and thoughtful concepts for the evolution of DNS administration." The structure of ICANN, including the UDRP and the registrar/registry construct, was ultimately based on the substance of the proposals in the IAHC gTLD-MoU.

Proposed TLDs

The IAHC proposed seven new top-level domains: {, align="center" , - , , .arts, , culture and entertainment , - , , .firm, , businesses , - , , .info, , information services , - , , .nom, , personal nomenclature , - , , .rec, , recreation and entertainment , - , , .store , , businesses selling goods , - , , .web, , World Wide Web related The gTLD-MoU interim Policy Oversight Committee replaced .store with .shop. The IAHC and gTLD-MOU effort did not produce implementation of these names. (The

.info 



The domain name info is a generic top-level domain (gTLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. The name is derived from ''information'', although registration requirements do not prescribe any particular purpose.

The TLD ''info'' wa ...

that now exists came from a later proposal under ICANN.)

External links

Generic Top Level Domain Memorandum of Understanding
(archive.org cache)

(archive.org cache)

(archive.org cache)
Draft IAHC Proposal
(IETF site)
ICANN IAHC page
(ICANN Wiki site) Domain Name System Ad hoc committees Supraorganizations