Max
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This is a domain story, circa 1994
credit to domaingang.com .. but Theo hasn't supplied the story link. I had to find it! If you love domains you will love this ..
Excerpts/highlights .. By Joshua Quittner
//I'm waiting for a call back from McDonald's, the hamburger people. They're trying to find me someone - anyone - within corporate headquarters who knows what the Internet is and can tell me why there are no Golden Arches on the information highway. It's true: there is no mcdonalds.com on the Internet. No burger_king.com either. Yet. //
//"Are you finding that the Internet is a big thing?" asked Jane Hulbert, a helpful McDonald's media-relations person, with whom I spoke a short while ago.
Yes, I told her. In some quarters, the Internet is a very big thing. //
//"Some companies," I told Jane Hulbert, "are even registering the names of their competitors." "You're kidding," she said. //
//"I could register McDonald's right now," I said, pointing out that the name is still unclaimed.
"You could?" she asked, then quickly answered my silence: "You could."//
//In the meantime, a frenzy of domain-name registration is going on at the InterNIC, or Internet Network Information Center, the agency that assigns domain names and rules on requests. It's easy to find an unused domain name, and so far, there are no rules that would prohibit you from owning a bitchin' corporate name, trademarked or not.
The InterNIC staff has neither the time nor the inclination to scrutinize your application. Not too long ago, I spoke to Scott Williamson, the person who supervises InterNIC registration, to find out what criteria the InterNIC uses to deny registration requests. //
// The guy in registration? One person is responsible for assigning domain names on the Internet?
Actually, "We have 2.5 people doing it," Williamson said, meaning that the half person is really a full person doing it part-time. Or something. Regardless, 2.5 humans is not enough people, or parts of people, to do the job. (Would one person be assigning quit-claims to a gold rush?) //
//Which means, I asked, that I could register mcdonalds.com?
"There is nothing that says I can stop you from doing that," he said. "We really need some policy."
"The problem with the Internet is, who's in charge?" he added wryly. "When we figure that out, there will be a meeting." //
//While NBC also has an Internet e-mail address for Nightly News, the other three networks haven't even registered their domain names.
But other people have: as I write this, abc.com is registered to ABC Design in Seattle; cbs.com is registered to a consultant in Golden Valley, Minnesota; and fox.com is registered to something called the Flexible Online eXchange, in California. (I couldn't believe that Fox hadn't figured it out. I mean, the Internet was mentioned on an episode of The Simpsons, and Rupert Murdoch was smart enough to grab Delphi, the national Internet gateway service. Fox does, in fact, maintain an address at delphi.com, through which viewers can offer feedback.) //
//more than 50 percent of the Fortune 500 names still available to first-comers. The top 15 companies all had their act together and had registered their domain names. But some other very big companies did not. Those include: Nabisco, Sara Lee, Anheuser-Busch, Kellogg, and Coca-Cola, or even Coke. Ooops. That was just nabbed as I write by one Rajeev Arora in Campbell, California. Way to go, Rajeev! The Pepsi generation, presumably, is more wired, since pepsi.com is registered. A John Sculley legacy? //
//"Registration for the domain MCDONALDS .COM has been completed. The InterNIC database has been updated.... The new information will not be visible via WHOIS until the next business day...."
My fingers trembled, as if ripping open a Big Mac. I checked:
$whois mcdonalds.com Domain Name: MCDONALDS.COM Administrative Contact: Quittner, Josh
Oh, that's McCool. I feel like McPrometheus. I have stolen McFire.
I need to get comment from someone. But who?
For weeks now, I've been trying to get McJane on the phone, to let her know that I have their name registered if they need it. One week, she's out on vacation. For two others, she's on another line.
Is she avoiding me? //
//This callous indifference to the Internet worries me. Will the Japanese catch on?
Isn't there someone in burgerland who cares?
Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce. You can have it your way, at Burger King!//
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/mcdonalds_pr.html
credit to domaingang.com .. but Theo hasn't supplied the story link. I had to find it! If you love domains you will love this ..
Excerpts/highlights .. By Joshua Quittner
//I'm waiting for a call back from McDonald's, the hamburger people. They're trying to find me someone - anyone - within corporate headquarters who knows what the Internet is and can tell me why there are no Golden Arches on the information highway. It's true: there is no mcdonalds.com on the Internet. No burger_king.com either. Yet. //
//"Are you finding that the Internet is a big thing?" asked Jane Hulbert, a helpful McDonald's media-relations person, with whom I spoke a short while ago.
Yes, I told her. In some quarters, the Internet is a very big thing. //
//"Some companies," I told Jane Hulbert, "are even registering the names of their competitors." "You're kidding," she said. //
//"I could register McDonald's right now," I said, pointing out that the name is still unclaimed.
"You could?" she asked, then quickly answered my silence: "You could."//
//In the meantime, a frenzy of domain-name registration is going on at the InterNIC, or Internet Network Information Center, the agency that assigns domain names and rules on requests. It's easy to find an unused domain name, and so far, there are no rules that would prohibit you from owning a bitchin' corporate name, trademarked or not.
The InterNIC staff has neither the time nor the inclination to scrutinize your application. Not too long ago, I spoke to Scott Williamson, the person who supervises InterNIC registration, to find out what criteria the InterNIC uses to deny registration requests. //
// The guy in registration? One person is responsible for assigning domain names on the Internet?
Actually, "We have 2.5 people doing it," Williamson said, meaning that the half person is really a full person doing it part-time. Or something. Regardless, 2.5 humans is not enough people, or parts of people, to do the job. (Would one person be assigning quit-claims to a gold rush?) //
//Which means, I asked, that I could register mcdonalds.com?
"There is nothing that says I can stop you from doing that," he said. "We really need some policy."
"The problem with the Internet is, who's in charge?" he added wryly. "When we figure that out, there will be a meeting." //
//While NBC also has an Internet e-mail address for Nightly News, the other three networks haven't even registered their domain names.
But other people have: as I write this, abc.com is registered to ABC Design in Seattle; cbs.com is registered to a consultant in Golden Valley, Minnesota; and fox.com is registered to something called the Flexible Online eXchange, in California. (I couldn't believe that Fox hadn't figured it out. I mean, the Internet was mentioned on an episode of The Simpsons, and Rupert Murdoch was smart enough to grab Delphi, the national Internet gateway service. Fox does, in fact, maintain an address at delphi.com, through which viewers can offer feedback.) //
//more than 50 percent of the Fortune 500 names still available to first-comers. The top 15 companies all had their act together and had registered their domain names. But some other very big companies did not. Those include: Nabisco, Sara Lee, Anheuser-Busch, Kellogg, and Coca-Cola, or even Coke. Ooops. That was just nabbed as I write by one Rajeev Arora in Campbell, California. Way to go, Rajeev! The Pepsi generation, presumably, is more wired, since pepsi.com is registered. A John Sculley legacy? //
//"Registration for the domain MCDONALDS .COM has been completed. The InterNIC database has been updated.... The new information will not be visible via WHOIS until the next business day...."
My fingers trembled, as if ripping open a Big Mac. I checked:
$whois mcdonalds.com Domain Name: MCDONALDS.COM Administrative Contact: Quittner, Josh
Oh, that's McCool. I feel like McPrometheus. I have stolen McFire.
I need to get comment from someone. But who?
For weeks now, I've been trying to get McJane on the phone, to let her know that I have their name registered if they need it. One week, she's out on vacation. For two others, she's on another line.
Is she avoiding me? //
//This callous indifference to the Internet worries me. Will the Japanese catch on?
Isn't there someone in burgerland who cares?
Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce. You can have it your way, at Burger King!//
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/mcdonalds_pr.html
