In the CNET interview entitled The cultural divide and the Internet’s future VeriSign CEO Stratton Sclavos still considers sitefinder an innovation and would like to “go commercial” with the root servers. What ever that exactly means - I am sure I don’t really want to know.

VeriSign to Sell Network Solutions Business to Pivotal Private Equity. We were waiting for this, but is this the type of buyer we expected? I certainly didn’t…

Let’s hear the community’s comments:

from a mailing list (not sure about the author):

I’ve provided a translation inline.

on Thu, Oct 16, 2003 at 01:37:16PM -0400, Network Solutions, Inc. wrote:

> Dear Valued Network Solutions(R) Customer,

We have this email in a database somewhere (I haven’t been a customer of
NSI since 1999).

> Today VeriSign, Inc. announced that it has entered into a definitive
> agreement to sell Network Solutions to a new entity formed by Pivotal
> Private Equity.

Verisign has sold the least valuable part of the monopoly to a bunch of
golf course builders (no, really: see the executives’ biographies on their
site: http://www.pivotalgroup.com/executives.html) in order to allow us to
focus on the real money, milking the monopoly on the .com/.net registry.

> Please be assured that Network Solutions continues to be committed to
> providing superior products and customer service to our more than 4
> million customers. You have seen evidence of this commitment in the
> numerous enhancements we have introduced over the last 18 months.

…after several years of legendary failure to provide even subpar
service, out of our lackadaisical approach to customer service,
technical excellence, and basic human decency, we have finally done a
mediocre job which seems vibrant in comparison. (They still seem to
think that I am “el jefe”, the name under which Zeldman registered the
Web Standards Project domain, even though I’ve transferred the domain to
register.com; attempts to correct this misperception have been ignored,
as did all the other attempts to inform them of their broken PGP and
notification system over the years).

> This commitment remains strong today in our 600 employees, each
> focused on providing you with a superior customer experience.

…for two hours daily except for odd days, when we hire trained macaws
to answer the phones and say “I’m sorry, I will need your Network
Solutions-issued account ID in order to help you transfer your account
to another registrar, even though you’ve blocked all mail from all NSI
owned domains after they spammed you to hell and gone for the past four
years or more.”

> Today’s announcement will not impact the service you receive from us.
> Network Solutions is the industry’s first and largest domain name
> service provider with over 8 million domain names under management. We
> will continue to support and enhance a full range of affordable Web
> related services, including domain names, Web sites, business e-mail,
> and more.

“impact” isn’t a verb. But it’s true - it won’t affect the level of
service you receive from NSI, because you don’t currently receive any
service from NSI, as you are no longer a customer, anyway, having had
the good sense to switch away screaming back in ‘99.

> As to the transaction itself, the buyer, Pivotal Private Equity, is a
> provider of equity for middle market corporate acquisitions. Pivotal
> focuses on companies in the telecommunications and Internet services
> industries, among others.

…including lots and lots of golf courses.

> The purchase agreement is subject to certain closing conditions, which
> we expect to be completed in the fourth quarter.

This is the part that scares me.

Basically, Verisign just sold the whois database to a group that builds
or buys golf courses. I’m sure our privacy is safe now.

> To view today?s press release and to get
> additional information go to:
> http://www.verisign.com/corporate/news/index.html .
[...]
> We remain committed to providing high quality services to meet your
> online needs and thank you for choosing Network Solutions.

But you’re /not/ meeting my online needs, and I /didn’t/ choose NSI.
In fact, you’re trampling my needs out of a blustery ignorance of the
core protocols that run the entire Internet, because you can make a
buck on selling advertising to people who can’t type. Repeat after me,
Verisign - “the Web is not the Internet”. “The DNS is not the Web”.
“RFCs are there to be followed, for the greater good of all”.

> Sincerely,

*splorf*

> Network Solutions Customer Service

> Please do not reply to this message. For
> Network Solutions customer service inquiries, contact us
> at mailto:customerservice@networksolutions.com.

This message was sent from an email address whose incoming mail we delete
without reading or bounce with some obscure error.

> (C) 2003 Network Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.

I just figured that Sitefinder and it’s possible comeback is already featured in many places - and I realized that Verisign is probably just following the“any mention of the name is good marketing” rule. Hence I decided that you should continue reading about this elsewhere. Heck, no-one really reads this anyways

So Verisign pulled their sitefinder. Unfortunately of course they make all kinds of excuses etc. so it seems that they are indeed looking to bring this service back. In any case, at least a temporary success. I can read more about this in a lot of other places, so I am going to cut this short for now.