Domain Extension Chaos!

I was just reading on Mike Muise’s Blog about the ruling that came down today from ICANN that opens the door for anyone with a little financial backing to apply for their own domain extension, example: .com, .net, .org, etc. 

I caught the tail end of this report on CNN today but didn’t quite get the entire story, Mike has some good info on his blog here about the ruling and how it’s going to take shape.  If you are even remotely involved with the web at all, this ruling is going to be something that you are going to want to pay particular attention to, it’s kind of crazy if you ask me, I can’t get my mind around what it’s going to look like, here’s a quote from Mike…

If you thought the domain world was a little over complicated as it was with all the various extensions already available, you are not going to like latest news to come out of ICANN meetings taking place in Paris. It appears as early as next year, anyone with a little financial backing will be able to apply to have their own extension created. I am sure some will go to good use, but I lay more on the side of skepticism here. Not only do I think some bad ideas will come out of this, I think this will just cause a nightmare for organizations looking to protect their brand names online.

Source: http://blog.dropthemike.com/2008/06/26/chaos-confusion-on-the-way/

Update on the Network Solutions Thing…

I posted an entry the other day, more of a rant I guess, about the whole Network Solutions “front running” thing.  Here’s a link to that post: (http://www.cottonrohrscheib.com/blog/2008/02/22/shame-on-network-solutions/) if you want to get up to speed on it.  If you are in the web development / hosting business or follow the industry any at all you have probably heard about this issue already.  It infuriated a lot of folks, which is something Network Solutions has proven to do very well over the years with their business practices.

I was just reading on the WHIR where Network Solutions and ICANN both are being sued by a consumer law firm for their controversial practice of locking up domain names as soon as they were searched for on the network solutions website.  Here’s a link to the article: Web Host Industry News | Network Solutions, ICANN Sued. 

I am going to continue to follow this issue and see what happens next, I hope that the Law Firm, Kabatek, Brown, Kellner (www.kbklawyers.com) is able to get this thing under control.

Shame on Network Solutions!

I was on the road today heading to a meeting and while traveling I decided to break out my Zune and get caught up on some of my Web Hosting Show podcasts that I have been running behind on.  I was listening in on one where Mitch was telling about the new thing that Network Solutions is doing, it made me so mad I almost drove off the road.  I knew this was going on but never really thought about it I guess, once it sunk in I decided I would come home and blog about it…

Did you know that if you go to Network Solutions website and check for a domain names availability and do not purchase the name that they (Network Solutions) will automatically hold the name back and make it unavailable for a period of time.  This means if you go to Network Solutions and look for the name, netsolidiots.com, and it is available and you do not purchase it at the time that you won’t be able to go to another registrar like Register.com or Enom and pick up the name because Network Solutions already has a hold on it?  I think that they can only hold onto the name for a period of 5 days or so but my gosh, being able to do that just doesn’t make sense to me.  Why hasn’t ICAAN stepped in and put a stop to this?  I am not for sure what the technical term for this is but for the sake of this blog post I am going to call it “desperation”.

Why do I call this practice on the part of Network Solutions desperation?  Simple, they have been losing the domain registrar battle for a long time now.  At one time back in the day Netsol used to be the only game in town, at least that’s the only alternative I had when I purchased my first domain name back in the 90’s.  A little while later a few other names showed up on the scene who offered up some real competition like Register.com and Enom.  Nowadays, Enom and Register are still out there doing their thing, and doing it well I might add, but Netsol has been reduced to only a small market share.  I admit, I don’t follow the registrar wars nearly as closely as I probably should, my partner Stephen handles all of our domain registrations for Pleth.  GoDaddy is also a mogul nowadays that I would be stupid not to mention, they are probably one of the largest now, if not the king outright, when it comes to domain registrars.

For years I have dreaded dealing with Network Solutions when we would pick up a client that had their domain with them because it has always been such a chore to transfer their domains out to our registrar for management.  I am not alone in feeling this way either, most webmasters and hosting firms that manage domain names for their clients all hate Network Solutions, or at least all of the ones that I have spoken with.  It’s sad when a hosting company or web developer has to form a strong opinion like that about a registrar, it’s just not necessary.  At the end of the day, they simply hold the domain name, how hard should it be to keep everyone happy?

I have probably went on about this long enough, it’s just a bad business practice I wanted to draw attention to, and one that I can’t imagine is still allowed, again, where is ICAAN in all of this??