In the thorny business of managing the plumbing of the Internet, someone's solution quickly becomes someone else's problem.
That's what Network Solutions, the primary registrar of Internet domain names, is discovering after announcing it will limit access to a key domain-name database beginning Friday.
Companies that provide domain-name registration services are crying foul over the change, charging that the new policy arbitrarily revokes access and ignores the needs of companies whose services depend on the database.
"The information that they have is critical to a number of Internet businesses," said Net pioneer and consultant Robert Raisch, who is among those affected by the new restriction. "Rather than fix their own broken business practice, they have decided to take that information out of the hands of those businesses."
The database in question contains domain-name "zone" files, which list registered domain names and corresponding name servers. That information is used to detect when a name reservation expires.
Network Solutions said it restricted access to the database to thwart a practice by domain speculators. These speculators, the company said, misuse a tool that is only really necessary for administrators of networks, such as Internet service providers and companies.
Speculators use the system to effectively reserve access to wanted domains without paying for them, Network Solutions said. When a would-be abuser sees a name that's expired, he spams the company's registration system with phony electronic registration applications.
By further limiting the requirements for access to the zone files, the company says it hopes to reduce such abuse. But this also frustrates attempts by legitimate registrants to set aside names.
"Obviously zone-file operators need access to the [zone-files database]," said Network Solutions' Chuck Gomes. "There are people who are using it to facilitate connectivity around the Internet. They're not using the data, but in a sense are setting up their own [local] zone files, so [packets] go quicker [on their network]. That's certainly a legitimate need."
