By Nick Patience
Network Solutions Inc has redirected all traffic to the InterNic directory web site to its own NetworkSolutions.com site in a move that angered many in the internet community, and left some of its would-be competitors hopping mad and calling for intervention by the US government or the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The change occurred over the weekend and NSI gave no notice of its intention to redirect the site to either the public or the government.
The reasons for the move are numerous, but primary among them are: the consolidation of what was becoming a somewhat confusing marketing message from the company, which had at least three sites dedicated to domain name registration; the pre-emptive combination of its registry and registrar functionality ahead of forced competition in its registrar business; and the fact that according to those who know, internic.net’s traffic would see it regularly listed in the top 10 most visited sites on the web because of the number of searches on its whois database.
The market seemed to think that NSI may have overstepped the mark this time, as its recent sharp rise was ended with a late drop in its share price, closing down $43.25, or 15% at $244.75, despite a rise above $300 at the open. Nobody was available to comment at ICANN or the US Department of Commerce, although the latter was reportedly looking into a possible investigation of the move.
The Herndon, Virginia company said that it was making the move to make for a better consumer experience and to make it easier to register domain names and alter existing account information, which is all probably true, but in making these changes, NSI is treading on the toes of many of its partners and resellers who register names in .com and the other spaces on behalf of NSI. Customers of those partners who use InterNic to look up names will now be confronted with NSI’s value-added services, such as free email, lookups for country-code domains and various dot.com marketing tools including personalized sportswear. And as such, those customers may feel no need to use their ISPs to register names.
That may seem fair enough, as this is business after all, but it means that NSI is combining both its registry and registrar functions in one place just weeks before it is due to start facing competition in the registrar market from companies that meet accreditation guidelines laid down by ICANN. Once that happens the company is obliged under an amendment to its agreement with the US government to erect so-called Chinese walls between its registry and registrar business so that its registrar does not gain an unfair advantage from being so close to the registry. These include both technical and financial barriers. But NSI’s WorldNic web site, which housed its registrar function, now also redirects to networksolutions.com.
NSI has run the domain name registration services in .com, .net, .org and .edu name spaces under a contract with the US government that it won in 1993. The registrar part of the market will open up to competition this year so other companies can help people register names in those spaces, but NSI will control the actual database of names, at least until the current contract expires in September 2000. The InterNic was established in 1993 by US governmental agency, the National Science Foundation and its operation was contracted out to NSI which runs the registration services, and AT&T Corp which runs the directory and database services.
Despite the lack of notice, the move is not a complete surprise as NSI has indicated its intention to make InterNic a more consumer-friendly web site – it is heavily used by ISPs and others in the industry as a ‘neutral’ place to look up unused domain names, but did not have the easiest interface by contemporary standards. Richard Forman, president of Register.com, which plans to apply to become one of the new registrars as soon as possible, believes NSI’s move was inevitable.
However, NSI’s move begs the question of just who owns the InterNic; both the name itself and the database of information it contains. The company clearly feels that it at least owns the rights to the name, though ownership of the database is less clear. The trademark is registered to AT&T, but is understood to have been handed over to the US government some time ago. Nobody was available at AT&T to comment. This all may prove academic as the name could simply fade from view as, presumably ICANN will come up with some alternative name for the central .com, .net and .org registry into which all registrars’ information will feed.
Earlier this year, NSI removed the creation date of a domain name from the whois record, thereby preventing anyone from knowing – other than the domain name holder and the registry – when a domain name was up for renewal. Again, NSI gave no notice of its intentions.
