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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Thursday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week 07/12/2006 |
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The importance of the internet
domain whois
information When the
world wide web began in 1992, everyone assumed that all
people using the web would follow the rules. This was rather rose colored glasses
thinking but it still exists today. When you
buy a website name – like www.yourcompany.com – that name is
registered with the organization that governs the internet – ICANN
– The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a
multinational organization. Icann now uses
thousands of authorized registrars for domain names, like godaddy.com
networksolutions.com and many others. To see
who the owner of a website is, you can go to any online registrar and click
on the whois choice. You will be prompted to type
in the name of the website you are trying to find information on, and then
you will see the names of the people who own the website, their actual
addresses, phone and fax numbers, etc. The
original concept was that when someone would buy a domain name, they would
put their actual information as
to who they were in their registration information. Theoretically,
that meant that if someone sent you an email from a website that you objected
to, you could go to any internet registrar site and click on whois – type in the domain name - and instantly see who the
owner is and how to contact them. The
problem today is that many people – particularly the bad people on the
internet – the spammers and phishers and
other crooks – now register domain names with totally bogus
information. So when you track
down a website’s owner, it might say Mickey Mouse who lives in Cheeseville, America and all the rest of the registration
information is bogus too. This information is supposed to be monitored by the
internet registrars, but they don’t. So if you
own a website, it is critical that you make sure the information on it is
correct. As owning a website is still a new experience to a lot of
businesses, often they will rely on a vendor to set up a website for them. When a
vendor buys a website for a customer, they’re supposed to register the
website in the customer’s name with all the associated information and
give the customer the website login information. Unfortunately, many
don’t do this, and instead put their own names as the Administrative
Contact on the account. This is of course so they can control everything
related to the website and keep the customer in the dark. The real
problem here is that all emails sent to the website regarding registration
renewals, etc. then don’t go to the company that actually owns the
website. So if the company that
set up the website suddenly goes out of business, the reminder emails that
the domain name will expire don’t go to the right person, and the
domain name expires and the company can lose the website name. You can
avoid this situation by going to any internet registrar online and clicking
on the whois selection, and then reviewing your own
website information. All
critical emails regarding website registration are always sent to the
Administrative contact, and if that information is not correct, you need to
change it. To change
this you need
to have the User ID and password for your domain, and if you don’t have
that – because your vendor never gave it to you, you need to get it
from your vendor, if they’re still around.. For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2006 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa 99223-1522 (509)624-7230 |
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