NSI Accused of Delaying Competition on Net Domain Names
Less than 10 days before the transition to a fully competitive system for registering Internet domain names, the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers accused Network Solutions Inc. of trying to thwart the process to protect its business.
Until this month, Herndon, Va.-based Network Solutions was the only company able to register domain names ending in .com, .org and .net. The Clinton administration and ICANN, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit corporation, have been working for several months to change that. But they need NSI’s cooperation to facilitate a smooth transition.
Instead, Network Solutions has been throwing up roadblocks to slow the process, wrote Esther Dyson, ICANN’s interim chairwoman, in a letter to consumer advocates Ralph Nader and James Love.
“NSI is in no hurry to see that monopoly eroded,” she wrote. “Thus it has been funding and otherwise encouraging a variety of individuals and entities to throw sand in the gears wherever possible, from as many directions as possible.”
Network Solutions spokesman Brian O’Shaughnessy denied that his company has deliberately dragged its feet.
NSI spent about $25 million developing a computer system that can accommodate multiple domain name registrars, and one of those companies--New York-based Register.com--has already signed up almost 10,000 customers, he said. Two other companies, Melbourne IT and a France Telecom subsidiary, are expected to join the fray shortly, he said.
O’Shaughnessy acknowledged that two of ICANN’s most outspoken critics have been on Network Solutions’ payroll. Jay Fenello, president of Atlanta-based Iperdome, said he served as an NSI consultant on Internet policy issues off and on for a year.
When the arrangement was struck, Fenello was already well known in Internet circles for his opposition to ICANN’s proposed method of creating new domain name suffixes in addition to .com, .org and .net.
Another ICANN critic, Tony Rutkowski, serves as a consultant to Network Solutions on both technical and policy issues. Rutkowski has long been in favor of reducing Internet regulations, and he said he is opposed to ICANN because it is moving in the opposite direction.
