<nettime> FW: seen rs.internic.net lately?

["cisler" <cisler@pobox.com>]

----------
From: Jean Armour Polly <mom@netmom.com>
Subject: seen rs.internic.net lately?
Date: Fri, Mar 26, 1999, 6:46 AM


It's been hijacked by Network Solutions, try to find whois, Internet
Scout, etc etc

Story:
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2558915275-a05
excerpt:
"The government-selected company that assigns most of the world's
Internet addresses made a surprise move to steer customers of an
important Web directory to its private commercial site, and the
government wants to know why.
           ``We're very concerned,'' Becky Burr, administrator with the
 Commerce Department, said Tuesday. ``This was undertaken without
 consultation with the United States government.''
           People trying to visit the popular ``Internic'' directory
_which checks the availability of a new Web address _ are
unexpectedly being swept automatically instead to the home page for
Network Solutions Inc., which offers to register Internet addresses
with the com, net or org suffixes for $119.

]
Protest letter:
I wish to register a strong protest regarding the redirecting of
rs.internic.net to the commercial site of Network Solutions.

NS was the steward, the guardian of this trove of information,
collected and arranged at government expense. Now this resource has
been hijacked and rolled over into a privatized enterprise. Sort of
like strip-mining Yosemite.

Shame on you, Network Solutions. Free the information!

Jean Armour Polly
Internet Society Board Member emerita
Coiner of the phrase Surfing the Internet, 1992
Net-mom(R) and author of The Internet Kids & Family Yellow Pages
(Osborne McGraw-Hill) soon to be published in its 4th edition
"These young kids today don't remember the packet wars of the early
90s, when we had to carry a SPARC station through the snow for
hundreds of miles until we reached a POP...." -- Jean Armour Polly
http://www.netmom.com
http://www.well.com/user/polly (mirror)
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