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Network Solutions to Sell WHOIS Ads

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the ain't-that-interesting dept.

Wired 2000 writes "A news article on InternetNews reports that Network Solutions plans to sell ad space on the WHOIS database, which raises the question whether NSI is allowed to profit off a database which they no longer own, particularly the highly trafficked WHOIS database. "

1 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Just the web page! by fougasse · · Score: 4

    They're only planning to advertise, via banner ads, on their whois web gateway.

    I don't see anything wrong with that. Whois isn't a web service, it's a service that uses the whois protocol. NSI has a gateway to it up on their page, and seeing as NSI has a quasi-monopoly on domain registration, it's a very popular page. But anyone else can create a gateway to whois just as easily, and tons of people have - for instance just about every web hosting company which registers domain names. Many other whois gateways on the web already have ads, and there shouldn't be a different policy for NSI's.

    Of course, if they start limiting direct whois access or placing text ads on results, that's another story. From everything I've read, though, they're not planning to do that.