Snap-Shot Service, which monitors changes to domain name registration records and provides weekly status reports but doesn't include automatic repurchases or back ordering.

CNN: New service back-orders domain names

While the announcement sounds the start of competition in this market, it raises a serious question for users: If ISPs offer domain name registration as an add-on to Web services, then who owns the domain?

CNN: New domain name system creates confusion over ownership

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) last week announced that five companies, including America Online, will participate in a test bed for a new domain name registration system designed to end Network Solutions, Inc.

CNN: New domain name system creates confusion over ownership

Until last fall, Network Solutions had been the exclusive provider of domain-name registration services under a contract it had with the U.S. Commerce Department.

CNN: New domain names approved

Not only do its domain name and registration betray clear connections with Syria, but its members are reachable through the group's website, Facebook and Twitter pages.

CNN: What is the Syrian Electronic Army?

While the new regime ends NSI's monopoly over the award of top-level domain names, the Commission is concerned that highly restrictive provisions in its licensing agreements with companies wanting to enter the market for domain-name registration will discourage competition.

CNN: European Commission probes NSI

The company collects a fixed fee each time individuals or businesses register a new .com or .net domain name, or renew the registration of an existing domain name.

FORBES: VeriSign Has $44 In Sight If Domain Name Renewal Stays Strong

So what we have here is a company operating a proxy service used by employees of governments around the world (including ours) that obtained its domain name with false registration data and is being hosted by a U.S. ISP that is rated the second worst offender in the world for collecting stolen data.

FORBES: Use A Proxy Server, Feed An Intel Service

All that said, how many more domain-registration companies can you name without a Google search?

CNN: Breaking down the Super Bowl tech ads

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the registration of the first .com domain name, the official beginning of the commercial Internet.

FORBES: Verisign: Cyber Attacks Will Grow 1000-Fold This Decade

For example, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), which manages the dot-ca domain, should pass one million domain name registrations by early 2008, yet implementation of French language characters is only likely to take place in the next few years.

BBC: ICANN logo