Year: 2002

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DNS as a Search Engine: A Quantitative Evaluation

DNS as a Search Engine: A Quantitative Evaluation. (June – July 2002)

In the course of the Internet’s growing popularity, many Internet users have come to use the domain name system (DNS) as a directory and search engine: When trying to reach the web site of a new or unknown company, users often request the web page at the address http://www.companyname.com, replacing “companyname” with a guess as to a site’s likely domain name. However, this DNS-based method is imperfect in that users may fail to correctly guess or remember a given company’s domain name, instead typically receiving errors or sites operated by other entities.

The research described in this article suggests that alternative search mechanisms, such as leading search engine Google, provide the content of interest with greater accuracy and reliability than does the DNS. This finding supports the claim offered by, among others, DNS software designer Paul Vixie, that DNS “is not a directory service and was never intended to be used as one.” This finding also quantifies Dan Gillmor‘s “Google effect” whereby Google replaces DNS as the preferred mechanism of locating content online.

Research further suggests that, while DNS offers what some might consider relatively high accuracy when conducting searches for top brands, companies, and organizations, DNS is substantially less accurate in searches for smaller brands, companies, and organizations.

 

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Survey of Usage of the .BIZ TLD

Survey of Usage of the .BIZ TLD. (June 2002) With Jonathan Zittrain.

The authors examined a variety of data about registrations in .BIZ. Analysis suggests that at least 74% of currently registered .BIZ domains provide no web content or provide only error messages or placeholders. Using WHOIS data, we conclude that approximately 25% of .BIZ registrations are registered to the same organization that registered the corresponding .COM, and that such domains are about one-third less likely to provide substantive web content than domains registered by someone without a corresponding .COM registration. We document 4886 distinct .BIZ domains seemingly inconsistent with .BIZ registry anti-warehousing policies, suggesting that such policies are not being effectively enforced. Finally, we compare .BIZ registrar market shares with corresponding shares in .COM, .NET, and .ORG, and we summarize notable differences in registrar market share across TLDs.

 

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Alternative Perspectives on Registrar Market Share: The Fortune 1000, the Forbes International 500, and the Yahoo Directory

Alternative Perspectives on Registrar Market Share: The Fortune 1000, the Forbes International 500, and the Yahoo Directory. (May 2002)

Since the 1999 introduction of competitive registration of domain names, analysts have examined the market share of the various registrars now able to offer registrations in the gTLDs of .COM, .NET, and .ORG. Initially Network Solutions (subsequently bought by Verisign) served the entire market as the sole supplier of such domain names, but competitive registrars have subsequently come to have substantial market share. Understanding registrar market share is of interest in assessing the financial viability and proper valuation of each registrar, in selecting a registrar, and in understanding the registrar features and design seemingly of greatest interest to domain registrants.

Continued work by State of the Domain (among others) documents registrar market share as measured as a proportion of total COM, NET, and ORG domain names. In contrast, the work described in this document takes a different perspective, focusing instead on certain subsets of the domain registration market. In particular, this work considers the domains of the largest American firms (as listed in the Fortune 1000), the largest firms worldwide (as listed in the Forbes International 500), and the relatively well-known sites listed in leading web directory Yahoo. These subsets of the gTLD domain name space are of interest for the distinct registration markets they represent. Most notably, this analysis focuses on domains actually in active use; the design of these subsets seeks to exclude domain name speculators and warehousers, whose millions of domain registrations might prevent ordinary domain registration analysis from properly reflecting the registrations of all domains actually in current active use and most likely to be renewed in the future.

Analysis shows substantial divergence among the groups studied. For example, while Verisign’s market share across all COM, NET, and ORG registrations has fallen to 39.1%, its market share among the primary domains of Fortune 1000 companies remains 83.4%. Similarly, while 74.1% of domains in a 2001 snapshot of Yahoo are currently registered with Verisign, only 44.8% of recent additions to Yahoo use Verisign. Nonetheless, Verisign’s market share is in every category of domains found to be larger than SOTD reports; thus, excluding registrations by domain speculators and warehousers, it is likely that Verisign has a larger market share — of domains actually in use — than SOTD’s analysis has suggested. In the Results section of this document, similar data is provided for a variety of other registrars.

In this research, I document the registrars used by each of the Fortune 1000 companies, by each of the Forbes International 500 companies, and by each listing in Yahoo; I subsequently compare these registration patterns with the registrars used by the entire domain name registration market.

 

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.NAME Registrations Not Conforming to .NAME Registration Restrictions

.NAME Registrations Not Conforming to .NAME Registration Restrictions. (May 2002)

In 2000-2002, the ICANN New TLD Program coordinated the introduction of seven new top-level domains to the Internet’s Domain Name System. Among these new TLDs was .NAME, a namespace intended, according to an appendix to its agreements with ICANN, to be used for “personal name registrations” of the form JOHN.DOE.NAME. However, a large number of .NAME domains do not follow the format specified in ICANN’s agreement with the .NAME registry. Rather than matching the first and last names of their registrants, or matching their registrants’ commonly-used nicknames or pseudonyms, these many domains instead seem to have commercial, humorous, or other intentions inconsistent with the .NAME charter and the .NAME registration agreements that bind all .NAME registrants; to follow naming conventions other than those required by the .NAME registry; or to reflect defensive registrations performed outside .NAME’s official Defensive Registration system.

In this research, I document several thousand domains reregistered within .NAME that seem to be inconsistent with the .NAME registration restrictions as embodied in an appendix to .NAME’s agreement with ICANN, and as embodied in the eligibility requirements posted by the .NAME registry and accepted by all registrants. A review of these specific registrations as well as their general characteristics may be helpful in understanding the behavior at issue and in evaluating enforcement of registration restrictions in this and other TLDs.

 

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Documentation of Internet Filtering in Saudi Arabia with Jonathan Zittrain

Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman. “Documentation of Internet Filtering in Saudi Arabia.” September 12, 2002.

Abstract: The authors connected to the Internet through proxy servers in Saudi Arabia and attempted to access approximately 60,000 Web pages as a means of empirically determining the scope and pervasiveness of Internet filtering there. Saudi-installed filtering systems prevented access to certain requested Web pages; the authors tracked 2,038 blocked pages. Such pages contained information about religion, health, education, reference, humor, and entertainment. The authors conclude (1) that the Saudi government maintains an active interest in filtering non-sexually explicit Web content for users within the Kingdom; (2) that substantial amounts of non-sexually explicit Web content is in fact effectively inaccessible to most Saudi Arabians; and (3) that much of this content consists of sites that are popular elsewhere in the world.

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Large-Scale Intentional Invalid WHOIS Data: A Case Study of “NicGod Productions”/”Domains For Sale”

Large-Scale Intentional Invalid WHOIS Data: A Case Study of “NicGod Productions”/”Domains For Sale”. (April – May 2002.)

In recent years, many Internet users have become aware that domain name registrants do not always offer accurate contact information. The distributed “WHOIS” database storing and distributing this contact data is generally thought to be important for correcting technical errata, resolving disputes over domain name allocation, and holding web site operators responsible for the content they distribute. A series of contracts, from ICANN to registrars to registrants, requires that contact data be complete and accurate, but nonetheless certain registrants fail to properly provide the required contact information.

While many WHOIS errors likely result from accidental error in data entry or data processing, certain registrants have been found to intentionally provide systematically inaccurate contact information to registrars for inclusion in the WHOIS database. Such fraud can include the entry of invalid street addresses and phone numbers, i.e. contact information that in fact reaches no one, or it can instead offer as the purported registrant of a domain some third party in fact wholly unrelated to the domain.

In this article, I document documented 2754 domains reregistered by one particular firm known for its widespread use of invalid WHOIS contact information. The majority of these domains redirect users to a single web page displaying a list of links to content that is, by and large, unrelated; the remaining domain names provide access to sexually-explicit images. While this research is by no means exhaustive — other firms likely follow similar registration practices, and still others make numerous invalid registrations and reregistrations that no doubt differ in various ways — a review of these specific registrations as well as their general characteristics may be helpful in understanding the behavior at issue.

Note that this research is focused specifically on large-scale domain registrations. I do not address the questions of privacy, spam, and consumer protection raised by publication of individual registration data in the WHOIS database.

 

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The Effect of Editorial Discretion Book Promotion on Sales at Amazon.com

Edelman, Benjamin. “The Effect of Editorial Discretion Book Promotion on Sales at Amazon.com.” 2002. (Winner of Seymour E. and Ruth B. Harris Prize for outstanding senior honors thesis in economics. Winner of Thomas T. Hoopes Prize awarded for outstanding scholarly work or research.)

A new dataset collected by the author allows estimation of the effect on book sales of promotional listing on Amazon’s editorial discretion pages. Following Goolsbee and Chevalier (2001), sales quantities are inferred from sales rank data freely available on Amazon’s web site, and an automated system tracks which books are promoted when, where, and how often. The results indicate that promotion of books on editorial discretion pages within Amazon’s web site yields increases in sales, and more frequent promotion of a book is associated with larger increases in sales. Increases in sales are greatest for newly-released hardcover books; increases are larger for childrens’ books, books in stock, and books more favorably priced at Amazon than at its foremost competitor, Barnes & Noble. Increases in sales are larger during the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas than before or after the holiday season, and promotion has a larger effect when editorial discretion pages feature only a few books than when they feature many. Finally, the average short-run effect of promotion on one of Amazon’s editorial discretion pages is found to be roughly one third as large as the effect of an appearance in the New York Times Book Review, and the annual sum of Amazon’s editorial discretion promotional activities shows a total short-run impact on sales roughly three fifths as large as the totality of annual Times book reviews.