PhotoDude.com

Tue. Feb 04, 2003

End of the Internet

End of the Internet – Run for your lives! The Internet is falling, the Internet is falling! “Network Solutions – the Internet’s biggest domain name registrar and the owner of the .com domain – has heralded the end of the Internet in court filings to the Californian Supreme Court.”

“It warns that if a forthcoming decision by the court goes the wrong way it ’would cripple the Internet and jeopardize the national economic benefit for e-commerce’. It would also ’threaten all Internet registrars’ survival’.”

Whatever could this case be about, if it so threatens our electronic lifeblood? Well, it seems a lawsuit over a hijacked domain name has finally risen to a State Supreme Court. In 1995, someone used a fax to change the registration of a valuable domain, sex.com. Network Solutions didn’t verify anything about the changes, they just did it.

This is not news. Network Solutions (now Verisign) have built themselves a long and detailed history of negligence in this area. “If your domain is registered through Verisign, you may end up having your domain stolen due to the incompetence of Verisign (follow the link for details). They will then admit, yes, you lost your domain due to our error, but, no, you can’t have it back, it’s not our problem. They are completely unresponsive to their own incompetence.”

The combination of that unresponsiveness, incompetence, and a domain name of great value, has finally brought the issue to court. So don’t believe the “End of the Internet” hype, there are some of us who say simply, “ ’bout damn time.” “God forbid that the people that are paid to effect the transfer of an individual’s property are sued because they knowingly fail to do so. If this became the case, the NSI explains, ’the cost of [registering domain names], currently ranging from $7 to $25 annually, would become unacceptably high’.”

“Presumably, it is at this point that the Internet falls apart. Or, if you were to look at it from a different angle, it is at this point that the Internet finally becomes a global, autonomous entity of its own making, uncontrollable by parties with huge and irreconcilable conflicts of interest.”