Domain Name Blog

I just had a pleasant opportunity to interview Justin Hayward, Communications Director of Telnic Limited - the Registry Operator and Sponsoring Organization for the new .TEL domains. For starters I would suggest you read this post to learn what is .TEL domain. If you already have, let’s crack on!

3APP: I have already heard concerns that social networks like MySpace, Digg may see a decline once .TEL is introduced. What is your opinion? Will it be possible to integrate Myspace into the new concept or these social networks are just a part of history?

Justin: I’m interested to hear who has been saying this as we believe that the .TEL makes sense of all of these offerings, rather than negating them. TEL offers a single point of entry for people to see the multiple ways in which people are communicating today and allow them to pick the one they feel most useful, appropriate or comfortable to them.

.TEL is an enabler to multiple points of contact being easily discoverable, so people don’t have to change their preferences but know that they are easily reachable at all times with the .TEL.

Secondly, you can use the .TEL as your single point of communication in all of these, so that:

• a) you don’t have email addresses that can be scraped from these sites
• b) you can keep your private information private whilst still being contactable and
• c) you don’t have to relinquish control of your private information to these sites for use in marketing/with their business partners. So it both supports these sites whilst protecting the individual.

3APP: How will I know if a contact-card I see is genuine? How do I know that Mr John Brown is really an MSc and expert in his field and not a teenager faking his identity for a laugh or even to commit fraud?

Justin: Identity verification is a social issue; it could be said of a website, directory listing or even a CV on Monster - people should always use their good judgment in dealing with people they have never met before. .TEL is not intended to be a proof of identity - it doesn’t act in the same way that, say, OpenID is supposed to today. Anyone can purchase a name of their choice and use it how they wish (unless it is trademarked in which case it will go through the UDRP process, or if they misuse it under the terms of the acceptable use policy).

It is a place where people can store all types of contact information. There is an acceptable use policy (AUP) which people will have to abide by, which includes misuse of a dotTEL, and which the Telnic will enforce by either requesting the owner change the information or in the worst case, suspend the .TEL. But at the same time, the contact information put into the .TEL can be used by the person looking up that information to verify and cross-check who that person is; the more information, the easier it is to check and cross-verify. That said, if people have an issue, they will be able to report it on the dotTEL community website and in serious cases, the private information of a non-legal (i.e. consumer) entity which has been hidden in the WHOIS will be revealed if it is deemed that the misuse is sufficient and damaging to appropriate authorities - especially in the case of fraudulent or criminal activity.

3APP: How is it intended to keep the .TEL secure?

Justin: In the case of private information being stored in the .TEL, it is delivered by encrypting contact information in the DNS - something that Telnic has pioneered. The security of the information in the .TEL is under the control of the domain name owner and no one else. They have sole control over the contact information they publish and then either make private or public. Any information made public is viewable by the world. Private information can be shared on a one-to-one basis through ‘friending’ functionality, like a social networking site.

3APP: What protocol will be used to store/distribute data? Is it HTML, XML or something new? What does “open specifications” mean? Is there a
possibility the .TELs would confuse search engine robots?

Justin: There are three types of data stored in the DNS - NAPTR records for contact information, LOC records for location-based information and TXT records for search-based information (keywords). A good explanation of all things technical can be found on Henri Asseily’s blog, our Chief
Strategist - Rik Notes on Tel Record Types.

3APP: Can you predict the approximate reg price of the .TEL domains at this stage?

Justin: Registrars set the price of the dotTel, but we can say that we expect to see the cost being commensurate with other top level domains in
general availability. The term can be anywhere from one year to ten years in this period (which commences on 24th March). Obviously, in
Sunrise and Landrush, this price will be higher.

3APP: There are thousands of people carrying the same surname. How will the surname-based .TEL domain names be distributed? Is it first-come first-served
basis or private persons would be allowed to register only subdomains, e.g. john.brown.tel?

Justin: It is first-come, first-served and anyone can purchase any domain name from Landrush onwards. There is obviously a limited number of unique names and people could register ’smith’ or ‘brown’ and then think about the third level for people in their families. However, there are some limitations for running third level domains for profit and these cannot be re-sold. The .TEL doesn’t have to be a formal domain name though - it can be nicknames, gaming handles, etc. With the keywords, the ability to describe yourself in unlimited words enables people searching for you to find you very easily, even if you’re not using your formal name (and probably even better than if you were using your formal name). So there are some strong possibilities for usage beyond formal names.

3APP: Can you reveal who is standing behind the idea of .TEL domain names? What was the inspiration for this idea, how was the concept created?

Justin: This is public information under the ICANN website - all of the submission information, approvals and endorsements can be found there.
It would be impossible to list everyone who supported the .TEL briefly, but you can see on the ICANN website letters of support from many different quarters, as well as those centrally involved in the communications. (You can start exploring the names behind .tel by visiting this link ICANN Tel Application ed.)

Thank you for the interview. We will continue to monitor all the developments in the .TEL world.

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