According to Cointelegraph, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web and hypertext markup language (HTML), expressed his views on the current structure of the Domain Name Service (DNS) during a discussion at ETH Prague. Speaking alongside Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Berners-Lee reflected on the early decisions made regarding internet architecture. He stated that if he were to build a DNS today, he would opt for a more decentralized approach. The DNS, developed in 1983 by Paul Mockapetris, replaced the previous hosts.txt file-based system with a scalable, distributed system for naming IP addresses. Although Berners-Lee was not directly involved in the development of DNS, he acknowledged that he could have influenced the URL structure to be less dependent on the centralized DNS system or advocated for a decentralized alternative.
The current DNS system is notably centralized, especially at its top levels. The root zone, which manages top-level domains like .com and .org, is controlled by the U.S.-based nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Additionally, the most authoritative servers are operated by a limited number of organizations, further centralizing the system. This centralization allows for potential censorship and control by governments, which can unilaterally seize or block domain names. The centralized nature of DNS also increases the likelihood of outages due to service disruptions. Control over root zones and domain policies is concentrated in a few regions and among select stakeholders, raising concerns about privacy as centralized DNS queries can be monitored, logged, and intercepted by internet service providers and other intermediaries.
In response to these issues, decentralized alternatives to the DNS system are being developed. The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is one such alternative, mapping human-readable names to Ethereum addresses, content on the Inter-Planetary File System (IPFS), or other data. Unstoppable Domains offers another solution by minting domains as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Ethereum and Polygon. ENS has gained traction, and in late 2024, ENS Labs partnered with PayPal and Venmo, sparking speculation about increased mainstream adoption. IPFS, which runs on Ethereum smart contracts, aims to be user-owned and censorship-resistant, primarily used in Web3 applications, wallets, and decentralized websites. Handshake (HNS) and Namecoin (NMC) are other projects aiming to provide decentralized and permissionless naming protocols compatible with traditional DNS. OpenNIC, a non-crypto alternative, is a user-run project offering non-ICANN domains, seeking to decentralize control through community governance.
