Green Paper
The Green Paper entitled A Proposal to Improve the Technical Management of Internet Names and Addresses was released by the National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) in the Federal Register on February 20, 1998 which calls for the creation of a new non-profit corporation to take over the management of the DNS.It also proposes competition and registration of domain names. The public was encouraged to provide their comments. Six hundred fifty (650) comments were received by NTIA until the closing period on March 23, 1998. [1]
Background
On July 1, 1997, President Bill Clinton instructed the Department of Commerce to privatize the management of the DNS as part of the administrations Framework for Global Electronic Commerce. The administration's objective is to increase competition and to encourage international participation. The Department of Commerce responded immediately to the President's instruction and issued a Request For Comments (RFC) which discusses the governments overall framework of the DNS administration, the creation of new top level domains (TLD), policies for domain name registrars and trademark issues on July 2, 1997. NTIA received 430 comments. The Green Paper was released by the NTIA based on the inputs provided by the internet community on the RFC. The Green Paper proposed the establishment of a globally represented not for profit corporation to handle the technical management of the DNS.[2]
Principles
Based on the Green Paper, stability, competition, private, bottom-up coordination and representations should be the guiding principles to establish a new system for the internet.[3]