Network Solutions Inc has signed its second major portal marketing agreement this week, this time with Netscape Communications Corp. Netscape will make NSI the exclusive domain name registration service on selected Netcenter channels and the non-exclusive one on others. NSI did not want to name the channels, but says it is fairly broad exclusivity. Earlier this week NSI inked a similar deal with Yahoo! Inc. It is targeting the small business market with this deal and the consumer market with the Yahoo hook up. NSI is making the most of its leadership position, which it achieves by way of a US government-approved monopoly as both a domain name registry and registrar in the .com, .net and .org domain name spaces. In addition to its domain name work, NSI says it will also market its free email, called dot com mail. Netscape, like all the major portals, also offers free email. NSI has a network of resellers around the world that can also register names in .com, .net and .org, but NSI takes a cut of all of them and as the registry, controls what gets added to the internet’s address book. By June 1 there are supposed to be five more approved registrars up and running in .com, .net and .org and by October, unlimited competition. But NSI retains the exclusive rights to the registry side until September 2000, by which time it will have held the contract for seven and a half years.
