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NOTE: At the time this was written, the selling of domain names had not yet been de-regulated. Network Solutions was THE ONLY WAY to get a domain name, and had no competitors.
Network Solutions is the organization responsible for maintaining a database of domain names via a registration process called "InterNIC". If someone wishes to purchase a domain name, they must check the database to see if it is available. If it isn't, they can purchase it through InterNIC for a $70/two year start-up fee, and $35 for each additional year.
Count 'em - 3,008,941 ".com" domain names. Each one paying Network Solutions a yearly fee of $35 to maintain a DATABASE. That's all Network Solutions is, a huge database of who owns what domain names. I looked up their company profile on Yahoo! and found they only employ 260 people. Here is a business summary concerning Network Solutions (taken from Yahoo Finance): Network Solutions currently acts as the exclusive registrar of Internet domain names within the .com, .org, .net and .edu top-level domains (TLDs), persuant to agreements with the National Science Foundation. For the nine months ended 9/98, revenues rose from $30.9 million to $62.4 million. Net income rose from $2.5 million to $7.5 million. Revenues reflect a 123% increase in registration services revenue due to the Internet's rapid growth. Earnings also reflect economies of scale. You would think that with these great resources, NS would be an efficient company. Anyone who has a monopoly on domain names should take responsibility for providing good service. NS does not provide good service, however. Their service is horrendous. Look no further than this site for a prime example. Over the holidays, newgrounds.com received so much traffic that it was forced to move to a bigger server. This is a relatively simple process:
This can be a seamless process if done right. The only problem is, InterNIC delayed in transfering the domain name, and the old server removed the content of newgrounds.com. The domain name now pointed to an empty void, and it was up to InterNIC to point it in the right direction. What was supposed to take 2-3 business days took over 3 weeks. I lost a lot of business because for almost a month, everyone who linked to me thought the link was dead. I had to handle a bombardment of e-mail asking where the site went. It was frustrating. Can I sue anyone for this? I guess not. Should I be pissing off the company that ultimately controls my domain name? That's probably a bad idea. So basically, I'm screwed. I just hope this little essay has boosted your awairness of the gross injustice existing on the web.
Posted February 6, 1999 by Tom Fulp |
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