VeriSign, Inc. Netword, Inc. People often refer to things in the real world by a common name or phrase, e.g., a trade name, company name, or a book title. These names are sometimes easier for people to remember and type than URLs. Furthermore, because of the limited syntax of URLs, companies and individuals are finding that the ones that might be most reasonable for their resources are being used elsewhere and so are unavailable. For the purposes of this document, a 'common name' is a word or a phrase, without imposed syntactic structure, that may be associated with a resource.