Network Solutions Inc

Network Solutions Inc., the company that dominates the business of assigning Internet addresses, said it named Thomson Corp. executive James Rutt to be its chief executive. Rutt, 46, was Thomson's chief technology officer and a co-founder of its First Call Corp. financial information service. He will take over from Michael Daniels, 53, who remains chairman of the Herndon, Va.-based company.

VeriSign Inc.'s Network Solutions unit, the world's biggest Internet-address seller, settled Federal Trade Commission charges of tricking consumers into transferring their Web names to the company for a fee. The unit last year sent out notices made to look like they came from a consumer's registrar and saying a registration would expire soon, when that in fact wouldn't happen for months or years sometimes, the FTC said on its Web site. VeriSign's shares fell 97 cents to $13.72 on Nasdaq.

San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp. will reduce its stake in Network Solutions Inc. and become a minority owner of the Internet firm. SAIC intends to sell between 4.5 million and 5.2 million shares of Network Solutions, leaving it with about 45% of the Herndon, Va.-based company it purchased in 1995. As of April, SAIC--a closely held technology research company--held a 72.3% stake, according to its most recent proxy statement.

Gary Kremen won a major legal victory Friday in his long and expensive fight to be reimbursed for what may well be history's greatest theft of virtual property. Kremen had the foresight to register the domain name "sex.com" in 1994 -- and the misfortune to have it swindled away from him in 1995. All it took was a forged letter from a con man to convince Internet registrar Network Solutions Inc. that ownership had changed hands. It hadn't. And so, a three-judge panel of the U.S.

IBM Corp. said its powerful server computers will replace Sun Microsystems Inc. machines at Network Solutions Inc., the company that manages most Web site addresses. Network Solutions has more than 10 million online addresses registered in its database. Its servers act as the liaison between a user's Web browser and the site the user accesses. "From an image standpoint, this is a kick in the nether regions to Sun," said Jonathan Eunice, an analyst at Illuminata Inc., a Nashua, N.H.

Web site operators lost a U.S. Supreme Court bid to overturn $62 million in taxes that Network Solutions Inc. collected when it was the official government registrar of Internet addresses. The justices refused to review a lower court ruling upholding fees Network Solutions collected from individuals and businesses to assign Internet addresses. Web site operators contended that $30 of the $100 fee charged by Network Solutions from 1995 to 1998 was an illegal tax.

European Union regulators are investigating whether Network Solutions Inc., the dominant registrar of Internet addresses, is trying to bar rivals from the business of assigning addresses. Network Solutions soon will lose its 6-year-old monopoly for registering top Internet Web site addresses that end in .com, .org and .net. It also licenses other companies, including closely held Nominet UK, to register addresses such as country-specific ones that end in co.uk or org.uk.

A federal appeals court rejected charges that Network Solutions Inc., the company that registers most Internet addresses, had violated antitrust laws by failing to expand the pool of Net locations. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a lower court ruling last year that the Herndon, Va., firm did nothing wrong when it refused to add Internet domains to the existing system that includes .com, .org and .net.

Network Solutions Inc., the Herndon, Va., company that has a near monopoly on the business of assigning Internet "domains," or addresses, said this week that it is losing money on the enterprise. The company's billing and collection systems have been overwhelmed by the volume of addresses registered amid the Internet's rapid growth, Chief Executive Gabriel A. Battista said in an interview.

The Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers apparently has more friends in the Clinton administration than Rep. Thomas Bliley (R-Va.) would like. Bliley, who chairs the House Commerce Committee, recently held hearings on the government's efforts to end Network Solutions Inc.'s exclusive contract for registering domain names--otherwise known as Internet addresses.

In a sign that its dominance of the domain name registration market may be on the wane, Network Solutions Inc. was passed by two upstart registrars in one measure of the race to sign up consumers to new domain names, according to a report posted this week by the Web's premier naming authority. Executives at VeriSign Inc.

No longer content with being the Internet's leading real estate agent, the company in charge of registering .com, .net and .org addresses now has empire-building on its mind. Network Solutions Inc. aims to become one of the Web's business barons by transforming itself from a mere broker and directory for Internet domain names into a one-stop shop for e-commerce services. "The name of the game is much bigger than domain names now.

Network Solutions, the company that has registered more than 10 million Internet names, apparently isn't moving enough names ending in the suffix ".net.' The Herndon, Va., firm began offering Web names ending in ".net" and e-mail addresses for free earlier this month. After three months, customers will have to register their ".net" names for an annual fee of $40. That's a 41% discount off the cost for getting a similar package for a name ending in ".com." In the Internet's early days, ".

IBM Corp. said its powerful server computers will replace Sun Microsystems Inc. machines at Network Solutions Inc., the company that manages most Web site addresses. Network Solutions has more than 10 million online addresses registered in its database. Its servers act as the liaison between a user's Web browser and the site the user accesses. "From an image standpoint, this is a kick in the nether regions to Sun," said Jonathan Eunice, an analyst at Illuminata Inc., a Nashua, N.H.

What's in a name? About $16.8 billion if the name is on the Internet and you're the company that put it there. That company is Network Solutions, which has registered 90% of the Internet names that end in the familiar "dot-com." On Tuesday, Network Solutions accepted a buyout offer from VeriSign, which makes software for secure online transactions, for $16.8 billion in stock.

In other earnings reports, Network Solutions Inc. said fourth-quarter profit more than doubled to $9 million, or 25 cents a share, from $3.7 million, or 11 cents, a year ago, beating analyst expectations by 2 cents. Revenue soared 143% to $75.9 million. The Herndon, Va.-based company said it registered 1.6 million new domain names in the quarter, up 161% from a year ago. StarBase Corp. said its fiscal third-quarter loss narrowed to $974,000, or 3 cents a share, from $2.1 million, or 10 cents.

Gary Kremen won a major legal victory Friday in his long and expensive fight to be reimbursed for what may well be history's greatest theft of virtual property. Kremen had the foresight to register the domain name "sex.com" in 1994 -- and the misfortune to have it swindled away from him in 1995. All it took was a forged letter from a con man to convince Internet registrar Network Solutions Inc. that ownership had changed hands. It hadn't. And so, a three-judge panel of the U.S.

America Online will be one of the first companies to go head-to-head against Network Solutions Inc. in the lucrative business of registering Internet domain names, the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers said Wednesday. AOL, the nation's largest Internet access provider, will be among five initial challengers of Network Solutions, which has enjoyed a government-sanctioned monopoly for registering domain names ending in .com, .org and .net for six years.

Amazon.com agreed to buy an 18% stake in closely held Living.com for an undisclosed amount to expand into home furnishings. Living.com also will pay Amazon.com $145 million over five years for marketing its site. . . . Network Solutions, which dominates the business of assigning Internet addresses, said the Justice Department closed its antitrust probe of the firm without taking any action.