The contextual Internet is coming. And this is good news.

"Community DNS" the first step towards a contextual Internet? From TCP/IP to social networks, the web has evolved a lot in the last 35 years. At the heart of the Internet's architecture since its beginnings, the DNS system has a real capacity to carry formal elements of context, content, and even trust and certification.

To set the scene for this use of DNS, let's start with the context and the ability of DNS to inform. Indeed, for several years, a whole series of new TLDs have appeared. First of all to designate content contexts (.info, .biz), to designate linguistic/geographical communities (.cat .bayern .swiss), shared principles (.bio .faith), industrial sectors (.space .sport .aero) or others (.yoga .club). Here, the extension signals the membership of the DNS to a particular targeted community.

Despite this opulence and the commercial success of the sale of these DNS, the logic of contextual DNS has not taken hold. On the one hand, we can see that .com has not lost its luster: very long URLs, complex to read and write, are now the norm for new websites. On the other hand, much of the registration activity around new TLDs is focused on brand protection and the use of acquired URLs as aliases for historical domains.

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The outset of a contextual web

?For the end-user, this situation generates a lot of "losses" - a loss of energy (because searching instead of finding takes time), a loss of attention (because you don't find what you want easily), a loss of value (because the time wasted in finding your way around is not used to do anything else) and finally a loss of trust (by facilitating abuse by the domain name).

In order to optimize the value produced by URLs, it would be necessary to use the DNS - and mainly the new community TLDs - as an informational tool, as a first simple and accessible way to facilitate the understanding of the services offered, the nature of the proposition and the promise of added value.

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From RATP.fr to Metro.Paris

?To put this point of view into perspective, let's take the example of a tourist who arrives in the French capital and is looking for information about public transportation. What is the most relevant URL to provide him with information about travel in Paris: ratp.fr as it is now? Or metro.paris? The question is of course rhetorical.

?As soon as we formulate this query with the two URLs side by side, the answer seems obvious: metro.paris gives a clear information about the added value promise of the web service to any person who knows the two words separately. This DNS metro.paris contains a clear informational promise: it clearly indicates both the subject of the content (metro) and the place concerned by this information (Paris). The informational promise is clear and can be kept.

In contrast, the address www.ratp.fr is not intuitive and can only be clearly understood by pre-existing users of the transport company. This URL only reflects a legal structure, i.e. the name of the company that operates the transport lines and the country in which this company is based.

While these categories of domains have existed for more than fifteen years, their economic importance has only grown, particularly in the field of brand protection (or conversely, speculation). From now on, these community DNS can become real tools for tomorrow’s Internet.

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From brand protection to Internet user protection

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Why not use these URLs as the first building blocks of a contextual Internet where DNSs would serve as clear and credible directional signs on the information superhighway?

Starting with the informational promise is both obvious and simple. Obvious, because it is always easier to find a book on a new topic if its title is directly related to its content. Simple, because an informational context is at the intersection of an explicit content offer and a target audience defined according to the usual rules of media audience segmentation.

In a second step, this logic of DNS as a context tool that creates added value for the visitor, can be extended to other issues, and thus become the solution to other problems.

Mainly suffered by end-users, these problems "that everyone knows but no one is in charge of solving" actually threaten the future of all digital industries... Without sincere respect of the attention given, there is no lasting attention. Without sanctioning bad behavior, there is no incentive to do better. Without rewarding good practices, there is no incentive to proactively improve. Finally, without trust in the identity of the actors, there is no regular economic exchange.

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In this sense, it seems to us that the DNS can become a tool for protecting Internet users of all kinds, by proposing technical-legal solutions such as certifications to be defined on the credibility of a given URL or the ability to generate complex and publishable authentications of an organizational identity. These logics would quickly contribute to the fight against fishing or malicious advertising.

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Registration and publication: avoiding the destruction of hard-earned added value

To achieve these benefits, new practices must be put in place. On the domain registration side, a huge amount of information is lost along the way, notably by using tools in 2021 whose regulatory and technical requirements date back to the early 1990s.

A lot of useful information is lost or ignored. Now, the vast majority of this information is not published in a simple and open way. Indeed, on the publication side, the recent evolution of WHOIS publication constraints contributes to create a whole new set of problems without solving many of the old ones.

On the contrary, it seems to others that the implementation of simple and transparent rating systems, and the widest possible publication of these ratings by various methods, would allow to show in a simple way a credibility or risk evaluation of a particular Internet address. It is not too late to maintain the trust of Internet users and digital audiences.

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Consider trust as a necessary investment

The specificity of today's challenge, whether economical or political, is that the time to "not lose durably" the trust of audiences is relatively short. Conversely, if that trust is lost, the investment required to regain it will be huge.

Indeed, the media, digital companies or large dominant platforms are subject to a growing loss of trust from audiences. The current system, voluntarily based on inefficient strategies to capture attention by disturbing or stimulating simple cognitive functions (indignation, anger), generates immediate profits, while durably destroying its capacity to keep its customers and creating deep societal problems in democracies.

It is clear that neither the technical nor the financial capacities are lacking to move to the next stage of the information society. What is missing is the will of the dominant actors to give confidence in their proposals. Not to mention what should be their real mission in the information society, namely to optimize the attention of their public, in order to offer them the most efficient information and decision-making processes.

?Existing solutions for problems being identified

?At the heart of the Internet and the information society, there is already a system that organize the contexts of the World Wide Web: the Domain Name System.

With the new TLDs, it is now possible to use the DNS as a first informational layer on the content promise of a given service. The more the use of DNS is in line with its "community" spirit, the more the given service creates a simple to perceive added value for its precise target audience, its extended community.

?For economical and technical reasons, DNS requires identified and known interlocutors. By rethinking the methods of publication of the information collected and in compliance with legal requirements, this identification can be confirmed, evaluated and shared.

?Without limiting the market's capacity to respond to all legitimate demands and to remain in growth, all collective industrial practices, allowing to increase end-users' confidence in the proposed services, would be beneficial to all the actors involved and to the social collective.

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The contextual Internet is coming. And this is good news.

Final note and credits: I've learned anything I know and more about the future of DNS from discussion with ICAAN member and DNS expert, Werner Staub , from @CORE Nic Association. Images created with Dalle, heavily prompted.