How the Internet Works cross posting from Legal and Ethical Issues

When you win a bid on for an Internet domain name, you don't own that name; you are only renting it. You pay the previous owner for the right to rent that name for a year - so who really owns it? The answer to that question is a tricky one. To answer it, you really need to know a little bit about how the Internet works.

In order to get an Internet connection to your house, business, car etc. you typically must pay an Internet Provider. This is similar to paying a phone company for telephone service and can be exactly like that as many phone companies are also Internet providers. Once you are connected to the Internet you can send email, listen to music, surf web pages and all other things cyberspace but what really happens when you type www.gradcenter.marlboro.edu into your browser? www.gradcenter.marlboro.edu is known as a URL or Universal Resource Locator. Each URL can be translated into a unique I.P. or Internet Protocol address. This translation occurs at a special type of computer called a Domain Name Server (DNS) which keeps a lookup table of URLs (www.gradcenter.marlboro.edu) and IP addresses (206.192.68.2). If you want to find the I.P. address of a URL you can go to a site like http://www.ip-adress.com/, type in a URL and it will tell you all sorts of information about it.

IP address location & IP address info:
IP address [?]: 206.192.68.2 Copy
IP address country: flag United States
IP address state: Vermont
IP address city: Marlboro
IP postcode: 05344
IP address latitude: 42.860100
IP address longitude: -72.728897
ISP [?]: TelCove
Organization: Marlboro College
Host: ernestine.marlboro.edu
Local Time: 2007-10-28 21:30

I also "own" a domain name 398North.com. Every year, I pay a hosting company called Planet Hosting $25.00 to continue to "own" it.

If I type my URL into another website http://reports.internic.net/cgi/whois I get back

Whois Server Version 1.3

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

Domain Name: 398NORTH.COM
Registrar: INTERCOSMOS MEDIA GROUP, INC. D/B/A DIRECTNIC.COM
Whois Server: whois.directnic.com
Referral URL: http://www.directnic.com
Name Server: NS0.PLANETHOSTING.COM
Name Server: NS1.PLANETHOSTING.COM
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Updated Date: 07-may-2007
Creation Date: 26-may-2004
Expiration Date: 26-may-2008

What does this all have to do with Internet Real Estate? Notice the last like of the listing above; "Experation Date:" If I am even one day late in paying that fee, someone else can buy 398North.com - for one year - for my $25.00. So, if I am only renting my URL, who owns it? One possible answer is Planet Hosting; that's who I pay my rent to. However, I can change to another Internet Host, keep my URL and pay the new host an annual fee instead of paying it to Planet Hosting. Another possibility is ICANN - the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. From their website -

ICANN is responsible for managing and coordinating the Domain Name System (DNS) to ensure that every address is unique and that all users of the Internet can find all valid addresses. It does this by overseeing the distribution of unique IP addresses and domain names. It also ensures that each domain name maps to the correct IP address.

- but I don't pay ICANN anything. So really what I'm paying for is to have the DNS system connect people who type www.398North.com into their browser window to the IP address I have designated. I'm pretty happy I didn't pay $150,000 for that.