ip: DNS, trademarks, and finding companies

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

From: Hal Varian <hal () alfred sims berkeley edu>
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 97 13:20:44 -0700
To: farber () cis upenn edu


Here's another suggestion on the DNS dispute.


One problem with the IAHC's proposal is that the extensions they
suggest (firm, store, web) give only a very coarse cut at
industrial classifications.


Why not use the real thing: the Standard Industrial Code that is
used by most economic organizations (Fed Govn't, Dun & Bradstreet, etc.)?
Take a look at http://www.nordexent.com/codes.htm to see what SIC codes look  
like.  [Most international organizations use variants of this system; it
would probably be best to adopt one of those for international coordination  
reasons, but I haven't found an on-line example.]


An SIC-based naming system would kill two birds with one stone.  The first
bird is trademark disputes. As is well
known, firms operating in different industries can trademark the same
name, e.g., Sun Oil and Sun Computer.  But if we used SIC-type
classifications these companies would have addresses like:
  sun.oil-gas.com
  sun.computer.com
Voila--no more arguments about who gets sun.com.  Trademark and domain
names would be automatically harmonized.


The other dead bird is Internet navigation: this naming
convention would help people find the companies they want
more easily.  It would be easy to set up system that help
people navigate SIC-space: you send it a query like
"leather" and it returns "manufacturing" which is the
superset which contains "leather and "leather and leather
products".


The SIC classification isn't perfect---like most classification systems
it out of date in various ways.  But it *is*
a standard, it is widely used, and it is a base for common  
trademark/taxes/accounting practices.


The SIC also contains a public administration section that allows one
to extend .gov in the same way.


I think that Brian Kahin has made a similar proposal but it hasn't gotten  
much press.


------
Hal Varian, Dean           voice: 510-642-9980
SIMS, 102 South Hall       fax:   510-642-5814
University of California   hal () sims berkeley edu
Berkeley, CA 94720-4600    http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~hal