On Apr 9, 2008, at 12:08 PM, Danny Younger wrote:
This is sickening and appalling behavior by NetSol. Internet names and numbers are not owned but are in the public trust. Network Solutions is acting as if these subdomains are their own private property. This program is the registrar equivalent of VeriSign's Sitefinder debacle.
I'm not sure I see it the same way. I do agree that this is a questionable business move and certainly not customer friendly from what I understand of it. But, any domain owner is free to use whichever DNS server they wish to resolve their domain names. If there is any aspect of the registration system that is freer than this one, I have yet to see it. With all registrars, domain owners can point their registration at any set of domain name servers which they can use to resolve their names. Certainly DNS resolution is most often provided free for registrants as part of a registration, but no one is bound to use those services (unless there are also contract shenanigans going on that I don't know about). It is trivial to set up new DNS for your domain if you don't like what NSI is doing. BTW - this isn't the registrar equivalent of the Verisign's sitefinder - it is the dns provider equivalent of Verisign's sitefinder. This isn't a semantic distinction, I'm pointing it out because ICANN doesn't have oversight of the DNS within its mandate - at least not at a level that affects individual DNS operators. -r