[registrars] NSI - Anti-Trust Concern

[mpalage@ipwarehouse.com (Michael Palage)]

In a recent article detailing the hacking of NSI's servers I found the
following statistic very interesting and directly relevant to a number of
concerns recently raised by Ken Stubbs.

In Courtney Macavinta July 2th CNET News.com article she stated that "of the
approximately 10,000 names registered per day, about 3,000 are registered
through NSI's own site."

What this means is that NSI through its "appropriation/high jacking" of the
internic.net domain and its "automatic" redirection to its site provides it
with an unfair competitive advantage over other registrars.  The
Internic.net site has always been viewed as an authoritative resource by the
Internet community to obtain information on a gTLD domain name.  However,
now Internet users are directed to NSI "the registrar" whois database and
not the nsiregistry.com whois database which is leading to public confusion.
In addition to numerous rumors that I have heard, I myself have received an
e-mail of direct public confusion.  This confusion will only grow in the
upcoming months as new registrars enter the marketplace.  This confusion
will only benefit NSI's attempt to retain its de facto monopoly over the
domain name registration business coupled with its exclusive proprietary
claims to the underlying whois data which is clearly contrary to existing US
law.

This report would indicate to me that the 10,000 number came from "NSI the
registry" and the 3,000 number came from "NSI the registrar". This appears
on its face to violate the sanctity  of the "Chinese Wall" that Ken Stubb's
has always questioned and rightfully so.


REQUEST FOR INFORMATION:

Does anyone have a clear definitive statement on what claims NSI has to the
Internic.net domain name?

Does anyone have information on the number of hits received by internic.net
domain?

Any statements on the NSI's proprietary claim to the whois database aside
from their claim that it is their customer list. I wonder what the
regulators would have said to AT&T during the divestiture in the 80's if
they claimed the telephone directories as their customer list :)