Saving the Domain Name System : Defending Network Solutions

[How the changes will destabilize the Internet]

According to many media reports, and to evidence on various newsgroups and web sites, Network Solutions is almost unique on the Internet in the degree to which the company and its operations are vilified. Yet it is clear to anyone who looks at the situation with a level head that most if not all problems are easily dismissed, and that in fact Network Solutions has been doing an amazing job given the circumstances.

DANGER -- EXPLODING MYTHS!

FACT: The domain name explosion could not, and was not, predicted. The number of domain names jumped within less than 3 years from a few hundred a month to a few hundred thousand a month. That is an increase of a factor of ten per year. No company, no matter how well organized, can be expected to handle that kind of gargantuan change of pace without a few teething troubles.

FICTION: Network Solutions is somehow exploiting people, as the Internet should be free and the domain names belong to "the people". In fact, the "Internet is free" rule is nothing but a tradition stemming from the Internet's roots in academia. The case could be made that the Internet's development is actually stymied rather than furthered by this general abhorrence to any attempts to impose charges for Internet-related services.

FACT: The domain name issue is something totally new. The domain name industry was created almost literally out of thin air [after all, domain names are fundamentally nothing but figments of the imagination made "real" by being recorded on a server somewhere -- domain names do not exist until they are registered for the first time]

FICTION: The domain name industry could function better under the auspices of a multitude of competing companies whose only real criterion for "job experience" is a very fat wallet. Network Solutions has had many years of experience in running the domain name system, streamlining the registration process, implementing more stringent fee collection policies, etc.

FACT: Domain name registration has not always been a cash cow. In fact, until very recently [even in Internet terms] the process was free and domain name demand was very low. It was only once speculators set their sights on the market and the number of registrations headed towards the stratosphere that a charge was instigated.

FICTION: At $50 a name, Network Solutions must be raking in the money. Sure, if their collection procedures were efficient, they would undoubtedly turn a modest profit -- but the costs of issuing invoices, reminders, contributing to the network infrastructure, upgrading the existing DNS servers and so on suck most of the money right out of the system.

FACT: Some things could be improved in the current system. Absolutely! There are a lot of problems with many of the existing procedures, such as the payment collection procedures, domain name dispute resolution procedures and so on. But these problems can certainly be solved, and at much less cost, both financially and in terms of disruption and confusion, than a complete change in the domain name system.

So think on the above next time you read an article or opinion pillorying Network Solutions. They are not the bad guys. At the very worst, they could be described as victims of circumstance.

[A real alternative]