St. Simons Island, Georgia, January 25, 2008: Today Karl Peters, President of the Top Level Domain Association (TLDA), announced that Top-Level Domain (TLD) holders have a new home. The trade association established in 1998 is ready to represent and protect the interests of Internet TLD holders worldwide. "The organization will seek to foster cooperation among TLD holders", said Peters, "and advance the cause of building a stable Inclusive Name Space (INS)". All TLD holders are welcome to join the organization.

The TLDA, was incorporated in 1999 by Gene Marsh and Bradley Thornton. Marsh launched the first private TLD ATM network at Diebold, a global leader in security systems and services, and Thornton experimented with TLDs allocations during his tenure at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the central research and development organization for the United States Department of Defense.

The TLDA was "ahead of its time", said Peters, "we had all the right ideas but the demand for top-level domains in the inclusive name space was lacking". Peters explained at the time the internet was undergoing rapid expansion in user numbers but the potential and benefits of operating TLDs was not yet well understood. As a result "the TLDA sank into dormancy and the community largely into resignation", he said.

That all changed in 2005 when Joe Baptista conducted a successful experiment in the Netherlands into the commercialization of the domain name space (DNS) using INS technology and open TLD allocations to facilitate the expansion of the name space. TLDA founding members Marsh and Thornton were participants in the project in which Baptista, an INS advocate specializing in DNS technology and related public policy, conclusively proved that demand existed in the Internet community to support new TLD allocations. As a result of these efforts thousands of multinational organizations, small businesses, and individuals today are TLD Holders.

The experiment, known under the brand name Public Root, was supported by many leading international organizations and ISPs. they included Tiscali, an independent European telecommunication company with over 4 million users, the Government of Turkey, and the Council of Scientific Society Presidents, a U.S. organization of presidents of scientific federations and societies whose combined membership numbers well over 1.4 million scientists and science educators.

That support evaporated in September 2005 when Baptista pulled the plug on the project. Shortly after the Netherlands experiment went live Baptista received complaints that individuals and organizations associated with the project were involved in financial irregularities and fraudulent TLD registrations. Baptista conducted an investigation into the allegations and found the projects policy and technical procedures were not compliant with community standards. He demanded the project managers "clean up their act". When they refused to comply he went public with his findings and walked out with his technicians and the technology required to operate the system.

According to Baptista the Public Root was technically sound but failed to provide the necessary safeguards to protect new TLD registrants. When negotiations with his European partners failed to provide Baptista any assurances that the interests of new Top-Level Domain (TLD) owners would be protected he called a meeting of the members of the TLDA in early 2007. "It was time to resurrect the sleepy TLDA and have it stand up and take its place in the forefront of the INS movement", he said, "we need an honest organization to protect the interests of all TLD holders that can work for a collision-free environment with sustainable technical standards".

After one year of dusting off and polishing the By-Laws, the TLDA is once again ready to accept members and hold elections to organize and represent the INS community to the many root systems now running throughout the world. "Now that it is clear we will never go back to a single root system again", said Peters, "it is imperative that these roots be brought into sync and the rights of TLD holders everywhere be protected".

All TLD holders are encouraged to join and help the TLDA achieve its goals. Membership will open on February 1st, 2008 and applications can be acquired through its web-site at www.tldainc.org in the document section.

Contact: Karl Peters
Top Level Domain Association, Inc.
Telephone: (912) 634-9168
E-Mail: tlda@tldainc.org