IP: If Macy*s was this bad they would be out of business

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Network Solutions goof bumps NASDAQ off the Internet 
By Will Rodger 


The NASDAQ stock exchange was knocked off much of the Internet for several
hours Tuesday as a result of administrative errors at the InterNIC, a
centralized Internet address clearinghouse run by Network Solutions Inc. of
Herndon, Va., NASDAQ officials said Wednesday.


Though the problem was initially invisible to NASDAQ, which maintains its
own database of Internet addresses, the temporary suspension of access to
the exchange's site blocked users of major computer networks - including
those owned by IBM Corp., MCI Communications Corp., PSINet Inc. and UUnet
Technologies Inc. - from getting to the site. As a result, NASDAQ was
unreachable to most Internet users for at least several hours Tuesday morning.


Problems with the Web site had no effect on the functioning of NASDAQ itself.


The snafu was due to a clerical error at NSI, NASDAQ spokesman Reed Walker
said. NSI, which keeps Internet domain names like NASDAQ.com visible to
other computers on the Internet for a yearly fee of $50, evidently lost
track of NASDAQ's fee, submitted last October, Walker said. The company
demanded payment shortly thereafter. 
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