Domain name dunces

Now, it's true that being able to steal a free e-mail account that the original owner didn't even ask for is not something to lose too much sleep over. Who cares if some clown can masquerade as "Your Business@dotcomnow.com"? It might provide a few minor opportunities for con artists and frauds, but the Internet is a pretty happy hunting ground for them already.

What's upsetting about this fiasco isn't any material damage done, but rather the sinking feeling it engenders. It's hard not to conclude that the folks who run Network Solutions are utterly ignorant of the most basic social and technical realities of the network they play such a central role in managing.

It's tough enough to build totally secure systems on the Internet even when you're working hard at it and you know what you're doing. But the kind of goof Network Solutions made here reveals a serious kind of incompetence that confirms all one's worst suspicions about the company based on its previous track record.

For instance, the annals of the Net are filled with tales of people duping Network Solutions into changing the records for a particular domain registration by impersonating the legitimate owner. Domain names are incredibly valuable property these days, and businesses depend on them. Yet the company that administers them has never taken full responsibility for ensuring their integrity -- while at the same time it tries to use its bureaucratic monopoly as the foundation for a profit-making machine.

When Network Solutions wants to avoid liability for resolving disputes over the right to a particular name, it pleads that it is simply a lowly registration authority that cannot be held to account; but when it wants to persuade the public markets that it is a hot Internet-company property, it poses as the powerhouse behind the Net's infrastructure. And it acts with frequent disregard for the needs of the community it serves: For instance, last spring it shut down the old InterNIC registry site and service, routing all domain name inquiries to its corporate Web site instead.

The entire domain name system is a convenience -- a means for substituting easy-to-remember names for the long strings of numbers (IP addresses) that actually identify individual computers to the Internet. As such, it's relatively replaceable; it's easy to imagine alternatives. Yet to date all the proposals for extending the current domain name system by, for instance, adding new top-level domains (adding, say, ".news" for news sites or ".shop" for online stores) have stalled for lack of consensus or legitimacy -- or because of resistance from those with a vested interest in today's ".com" hegemony, like Network Solutions itself.

Meanwhile, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is proceeding with its plans to open up the domain name registration business to competition. Given Network Solutions' history, it shouldn't be too difficult for new entrants in this field to provide better service. On the other hand, it's unclear how much the new, upstart registrars will still have to depend on Network Solutions and its existing systems in order to conduct their businesses.

ICANN has taken flak from all sides -- Network Solutions isn't happy about giving up one iota of its dominance, while some would-be "little guy" registrars complain that ICANN isn't moving fast enough or far enough in dismantling the existing monopoly. But ICANN's thankless task may be of the sort that can only be performed well by pleasing no one.

In the meantime, when next you hear Network Solutions refer to itself as "the dot com people," don't believe it! You and I and everyone else who's ever registered a domain or built a Web site are "the dot com people." On the basis of their performance this week, the folks at Network Solutions are the "don't know" people.

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