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DNS Structure: New Top Level Domains

About Dot-Museum

.museum -- for museums

.museum is for museums, including online "virtual museums". It is run by Musedoma, a non-profit organization. It has a relatively small constituency, but it could be useful within that field. The desirability of .museum may be reduced, however, by the complex naming rules that are proposed, where museums must register in at least the third level of the domain space (and maybe even higher) instead of just "yourname.museum". Names may end up more logically organized than in most other TLDs, but longer and harder to type and remember. Also, museums that don't fit easily into a single category might have trouble placing themselves in this system. At any rate, this TLD will be checking on the legitimacy of a museum (which must be a not-for-profit institution with exhibits open to the public) before allowing them to register.

The .museum startup procedure is refreshingly based on discussion and consensus within the targeted community rather than by clashes of lawyers, speculators, and marketing types as are most other domain policies these days. It seems kind of a throwback to the way the original TLDs were introduced in the mid-1980s when computer geeks and academics still ruled the net. However, another section of the agreement with ICANN imposes a challenge procedure for those who claim a registrant is unqualified, which would drag in external agencies to judge this (as with the UDRP for trademark infringement cases). Anyway, the agreement between MuseDoma and ICANN was signed on October 18, 2001, and the domain is now live. Name requests in the first phase of the startup process were taken through November 1, and the first batch of names was announced on Nov. 8. There is also a WHOIS server and a hierarchical directory, and "wildcard" DNS records have been set up so that you can try any .museum name in your browser and will get the directory site if no other site exists at that address.

During the experimental phase, the sponsoring organization hosted the DNS entries for all .museum domains rather than delegating them to the servers designated by the registrants, which limited the utility and flexibility of the names until a more permanent registration and delegation system was put into place. They announced, however, that Phase 1 of the experimental registry system would conclude at the end of February, 2002, to be followed by a Phase 2 where a naming structure is pretty well set and registrants are encouraged to follow it (in the first phase no structure was announced in advance and registrants had to suggest second-level domains to put their third-level registrations within). After the end of this phase (no date announced yet), true registrations and delegations would begin. In April, 2002, the official eligibility verification service was inaugurated, in which registrants pay a fee and submit documentation to prove their museum status. As of yet, no registrars have been accredited to begin normal registrations.