NEW YORK -- The company that manages databases for the Internet's most popular names has shut down an e-mail discussion list that had turned into a forum for its critics.
VeriSign Inc. made the announcement on the "Domain-Policy" mailing list Thursday. The decision was effective immediately.
Brian O'Shaughnessy, a VeriSign spokesman, said the closure had nothing to do with the criticisms. If that had been the case, he said, VeriSign would have shut down the list long ago.
The list was started in 1996 by Network Solutions Inc. as a forum to discuss issues related to Internet names. VeriSign took over management of the list when it bought the company last year.
The company determined that the list was no longer needed because discussion forums are now available elsewhere.
"When we started the list many years ago, there were no lists specifically focusing on domain policy issues," VeriSign's Tom Newell said in a farewell message.
"Thank you very much for your participation," he added.
O'Shaughnessy said VeriSign and Network Solutions had discussed terminating the list for two or three years. He said more serious talks in the past few weeks led to a final decision Thursday.
Critics were disappointed and noted that terminating the list would kill the discussion archives as well.
VeriSign and Network Solutions have been keeping the master lists for dot-com, dot-net and dot-org names since 1992. When Internet users visit websites or send e-mail under one of those suffixes, they touch VeriSign's databases in some fashion.
Many of the complaints center on VeriSign's monopoly over the records, a monopoly it received under contract with the U.S. government.
Participants also have ranted about the proper role of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the organization selected by the government in 1998 to oversee naming policies. Many contributors to the list believe ICANN frequently oversteps its bounds.
Discussion forums are available at ICANN's website. Critics have also set one up through ICANNWatch, a watchdog group. Many companies in the business of selling domain names also have smaller lists and message boards.
