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3 The <strong>name</strong> <strong>collision</strong> study<br />
3.1 Motivation<br />
ICANN has reached the point in its new gTLD program at which applications that have passed<br />
Initial Evaluation will begin to proceed to delegation. Questions have be<strong>en</strong> raised [3][4] about<br />
the pot<strong>en</strong>tial <strong>collision</strong> betwe<strong>en</strong> newly delegated TLD labels and syntactically id<strong>en</strong>tical strings<br />
that are already in use as <strong>name</strong>s that are not part of the public DNS but oft<strong>en</strong> appear in the same<br />
context. ICANN commissioned this study to gather information about the likelihood and<br />
pot<strong>en</strong>tial consequ<strong>en</strong>ces of these <strong>name</strong> <strong>collision</strong>s, and to suggest options for mitigating risks<br />
arising from any new gTLD delegation.<br />
3.2 Scope<br />
The scope of this study is defined by the information that can be derived either directly or<br />
through analysis from its three principal data sources:<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
the DNS request stream at the root servers that participated in the “Day in the Life of the<br />
Internet” (DITL) exercises organized by the DNS Operations, Analysis, and Research<br />
C<strong>en</strong>ter (DNS-OARC) 9 in 2012 and 2013;<br />
the DNS request stream at servers operated by a global DNS resolver organization that<br />
contributed to the 2012 DITL exercise; and<br />
data concerning the issuance of internal <strong>name</strong> certificates provided by organizations that<br />
operate Certificate (or Certification) Authorities that issue public key digital certificates,<br />
many of them members of the Certification Authority/Browser (CA/B) Forum. 10<br />
This scope is deliberately and necessarily narrow and limited.<br />
3.3 Terms of refer<strong>en</strong>ce and study timeline<br />
A resolution of the ICANN Board adopted on 18 May 2013 11 noted that “<strong>en</strong>terprises have local<br />
<strong>en</strong>vironm<strong>en</strong>ts that may include strong assumptions about which top-level domains exist at the<br />
root level of the public DNS, and/or have introduced local top-level domains that may conflict<br />
with <strong>name</strong>s yet to be delegated at the root level of the public DNS” and called for “a study on the<br />
use of TLDs that are not curr<strong>en</strong>tly delegated at the root level of the public DNS in <strong>en</strong>terprises.”<br />
The Board resolution called for the study to “consider the pot<strong>en</strong>tial security impacts of appliedfor<br />
new-gTLD strings in relation to this usage.”<br />
9 https://www.dns-oarc.net<br />
10 https://www.cabforum.org<br />
11 http://www.icann.org/<strong>en</strong>/groups/board/docum<strong>en</strong>ts/resolutions-18may13-<strong>en</strong>.htm#2.a<br />
Name Collision Study Report Page 16<br />
Version 1.5 2013.08.02