Network Solutions cuts short Google shortcut
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The issue cropped up about two weeks ago, when Google quietlylaunched a service allowing visitorsto look up data on domain name owners from public databases--collectivelyknown as Whois--run by registrars worldwide. Although largely unpromoted,the service generated enough traffic to surpass Network Solutions' (NSI's) daily Whois use limits, which aim to stop spammers and other undesirables from harvesting information about its customers.
With NSI blocking most of its Whois queries, Google pulled the featureand information about it from its FAQ after a couple of days, replacingWhois queries with ads from registrars, including NSI.
"This is a public service that we're required to do, but it's beendrastically abused" by spammers, said Champion Mitchell, chief executive ofNetwork Solutions, the largest registrar of domains ending in ".com" and".net". "We're not going to enable people to violate the privacy of ourcustomers easily."
The tussle highlights a growing problem for Google as it seeks to beall things to all people. The company's challenge is to offer visitors helpful new search serviceswithout alienating the Internet operators it relies on for advertising orpartners that may have different priorities.
Google's try-anything attitude is in the spotlight as the companyprepares for an initial public offering, which is widely expected byspring.
In the last two years, Google has broadened its scope to include services for self-publishing to the Web, advertising sales for large and small sites, and corporate search. More recently, the company has increasingly edged into shortcuts to data such as flight times and phone numbers, for example.
Although Google pulled the Whois feature for now, the company told CNETNews.com that it is continuing to explore ways to offer a shortcut for Whoislook-ups. "We'd like to enable our users to access Whois information and weare currently evaluating different ways to make that happen," according to aGoogle representative.
According to NSI's Mitchell, Whois look-ups pose a substantial threat to customers, whose e-mail addresses and phone numbers can easily fall into the wrong hands. In order to thwart abuse, the company has long set a daily cap on the number of times any third-party Web site can query its database. NSI will not specify that number, but Mitchell said that the company places the cap to deter spammers.
NSI started using another stringent antispam tactic last May, which requires people to type in code of five or six letters and numbers before they can access domain-registration data. That hurdle deters spammers that build automated bots to query the database for e-mail addresses repeatedly. Mitchell also said NSI recently started offering a privacy feature, which for about $5 lets domain owners keep their e-mail address confidential.
NSI's use limits apparently froze out Google despite the fact that the two companies are partners. NSI helps Google market its advertising services to new domain name owners, and advertises its own services through Google.
In delivering its Whois shortcut, Google drew on a database managed byRatite.com, a global Whois look-up site developed by software engineer GaryMoore. Unlike NSI, Ratite.com does not sell domain names. Rather, Moorehopes to make a business out of simplifying Whois look-ups in a fragmentedsystem where hundreds of competing registrars each run their own databasesand no central repository exists.
In the few days the service was up and running, Ratite.com exceededNSI's allotted look-ups within an hour, according to Moore, who estimatedthat NSI allows a single site to make about 1,000 queries on its Whoisdatabase per day. Moore said that NSI did not respond when he tried todiscuss the issue.
Moore said he has instituted his own security measures against Whoisabuse by blocking the Internet Protocol addresses of anyone who queries the database more than several times a second. He added that he believes spam is partly anexcuse for NSI to keep Whois traffic on its own site, where it can marketits services.
"Money makes all this stuff work," Moore said. "If I had to guess,Google took it down because of Network Solutions, and Network Solutions hasa commercial interest because they sell domain names."
NSI's Mitchell acknowledged that NSI is a Google advertiser and thatNSI offers Google's Adwords program to its customers. However, he said thatthere was no link between that advertising and the closure of Google's Whois look-up service.
He added that NSI will seek to protect its Whois database from spammers and others seeking to mine information, for whatever purpose.
"I don't care who is coming to try to mine that data," he said. "We will make sure we try to stop it."
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