Brian McWilliams

An Atlanta firm that pioneered the idea of personal domain names announced Friday that it’s going out of business. Iperdome Inc., which has been registering domains since 1997 under the .per top-level domain as part of the Enhanced Domain Name System (eDNS), said it has suspended operations immediately. Iperdome President Jay Fenello Friday blamed the […]

The bottom is about to fall out of Internet domain name pricing. While most domain registrars accredited by the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers charge around $70 for a two-year registration, a California start-up says it’s taking pre-registrations for .com, .net. and .org domains for the amazingly low price of zero. iDirections.com Inc., […]

EarthLink Network Inc. and MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. Thursday merged in a deal that will create the nation’s second largest Internet service provider with an estimated subscriber base of more than 3 million members. As part of the deal, MindSpring (MSPG) and EarthLink (ELNK) will both merge into a newly formed public company known as EarthLink. […]

Web developers and users were warned Friday that security vulnerabilities in Web-based e-mail and other sites that allow user postings may be more widespread than previously thought. According to security experts, most major Web mail services, message boards, guest books and auction postings are not completely screening for Javascript. As a result, the services enable […]

Unlike its American parent firm, AOL Canada Inc. this week took steps to enter the high-speed cable Internet access market by forming an alliance with Regional Cablesystems Inc., a cable television company serving Canada’s non-urban communities. Regional Cablesystems provides cable television and telecommunications services to a customer base of approximately 250,000 located in 1,000 non-urban […]

A mass e-mail solicitation sent Wednesday night by Network Solutions Inc. has generated a stormy reaction from some customers. Bearing the subject line “Important information about your domain name account,” NSI’s e-mail reminds customers that the company will switch Saturday to a new payment policy, previously reported by InternetNews.com, replacing the current invoice system for […]

What started as a local cable franchise authority’s decision to make open access a tenet to AT&T’s assuming Tele-Communications Inc.’s Portland, Ore., cable license, has exploded into a national debate about cable access to the Internet. In an amicus curiae brief filed this week, a collection of consumer groups made their support for the Portland […]

Microsoft’s Hotmail service is at risk again from a new security threat. Bulgarian programmer Georgi Guninski has discovered that the Web-based email service allows embedded javascript code to be automatically executed on the computers of Hotmail users. According to Guninski, the flaw could enable a malicious person to launch password stealing programs or to secretly […]

Experienced Internet users know that answers to just about any question are available just by reading and posting to Usenet newsgroups or mailing lists, or by firing up a favorite search engine. But a new Web start-up thinks information — at least good information — doesn’t want to be free. New York-based InfoRocket Inc. is […]

In a decision that could refine the legal definition of cybersquatting, a federal court in Boston has ruled against toy maker Hasbro Inc. in a long-running legal dispute over the domain clue.com. In June, 1994 clue.com was registered to Clue Computing, a small Internet consulting firm in Boulder, Colo. In February 1996, Hasbro initiated a […]

Unisys Corp. has confirmed a change in its policy of collecting licensing fees on a patent that affects users of the popular GIF digitized image format. Unisys holds a patent on LZW, which is an algorithm used to create GIF files. The company is now asking Web developers to determine whether the image software they’re […]

The instant messaging war between Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and America Online Inc. (AOL) has many pessimistic about the prospects that online chat can develop into an industrial-strength communication tool anytime soon. However, the bickering over interoperability could become old news if a new, open-source IM project is successful. Launched last January, Jabber uses an open […]