12:08pm 4.Jun.98.PDT 
WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration announced today it will release on Friday its long-awaited  final plan to overhaul the Internet's naming system. 
  
But sources familiar with the document say that some of the most difficult decisions about how to manage the Internet's addressing system will be deferred to a newly created nonprofit group. 
The plan, overseen by senior Clinton adviser Ira Magaziner, seeks to resolve the controversy over management of some of the Internet's most basic functions, including the assignment and registration of Web-site names. 
  
The administration still plans to phase out government involvement in the naming system, as an initial draft  of the report released in January suggested. But specific proposals to extend the system or dictate how it should function in the future have been scaled back. 
  
The January plan sparked complaints from Internet groups, which said the government was making too many critical choices that should be left to the parties involved. Companies with strong brand names protested the creation of new domain names that they have to monitor for possible trademark violations. 
  
And Australians complained that the initial plan left too much power in the hands of US organizations. 
Under the current system, Network Solutions manages the naming system for generic domains under an exclusive government contract that expires in September. 
  
Network Solutions would have faced two new forms of competition under the January plan, although it would have continued to manage the massive database containing all of the registrations in .com, .net, and .org domains. 
  
The company would have been required to allow other firms to register addresses and put them in the company's database. Also, five new top-level domains would have been created, each with its own registry 
manager. 
  
But the revised, final plan leaves all of those decisions up to a new nonprofit group headed by 15 people selected from private-sector, Internet, and consumer groups, sources familiar with the plan said. 
  
The Commerce Department has scheduled a news briefing on the plan for 10 am EDT Friday.