verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . july 2014 learn how and when to remove this template message network solutions founded january 1979 ; 37 years ago 1979 01 headquarters herndon virginia u.s. president david brown ceo david brown industry domain name registration services domain names web hosting web site design e commerce search engine marketing ssl certificates e mail and domain name registration services employees 2 200 1 parent web.com website www.networksolutions.com alexa rank 4 477 as of august 2015 update 2 network solutions llc is an american technology company founded in 1979 . the domain name registration business has become the most important division of the company . as of january 2009 network solutions managed more than 6.6 million domain names . in addition to being a domain name registrar network solutions provides web services such as web hosting website design and online marketing including search engine optimization and pay per click management . contents 1 history 2 registry and registrar business 3 controversies 3.1 weblock service 3.2 controversy over domain name front running 3.3 publishing non public information 3.4 fitna controversy 3.5 controversy over subdomain hijacking 3.6 races.com controversy 3.7 misleading customers over refunds 4 see also 5 references 6 external links history edit network solutions inc. nsi started as a technology consulting company incorporated by gary desler ty grigsby emmit j. mchenry and ed peters in washington d.c. in january 1979 . 3 in its first few years the company focused on systems programming services primarily in the ibm environment . annual revenues passed 1 million in 1982 growing to 18.5 million in 1986 . john dillon reports in mediafilter.org initially the service was subsidized by the government . but in may 1993 the national science foundation privatized the name registry internic internet network information center and paid nsi 5.9 million to administer it . in september 1995 nsi instituted the fee system . a few months earlier it had been bought out by science applications international corp saic . 4 network solutions was acquired by science applications international corporation saic in march 1995 . 5 the company issued an ipo and was listed on nasdaq in 1997 . 6 in 2000 network solutions was acquired by verisign inc. for 21 billion . 3 in 2003 nearly 90 % of the company s revenue was from domain name registrations said network solutions then chief executive w.g. champ mitchell . since 2005 the company has added 69 services and products and today these new offerings are fueling network solutions growth . now only 45 % of the company s revenue comes from domain name registrations . on october 17 2003 verisign announced the sale of the registrar business which continued to operate under the branding network solutions to pivotal equity group . 3 verisign still retains the registry business which had been originally created within network solutions prior to verisign s acquisition of the company . during january 2006 network solutions acquired e commerce solutions company monstercommerce co founded by stephanie leffler and ryan noble in belleville illinois . on february 6 2007 network solutions announced that general atlantic a private equity firm entered into a definitive agreement to acquire network solutions from najafi companies formerly pivotal private equity . 7 although terms of the deal were not released the wall street journal reported in a story on may 30 2007 that the price tag was around 800 million . 8 at the end of july 2007 network solutions had 6 659 150 domains under management and was in the top five wholesale domain registrars following go daddy with 19 709 215 domains and enom with 7 646 676 domains . tucows the largest publicly traded registrar has 6 622 982 domains under management with its recent acquisition of itsyourdomain.com . melbourne it a publicly traded company located in australia trailed with 4 664 019 domains under management . 9 in 2008 roy dunbar was appointed ceo . 10 on november 2 2009 tim kelly president of network solutions replaced roy dunbar as ceo . roy continues to act as chairman and advisor to network solutions . 11 in august 2011 it was announced that network solutions will be bought by web.com for 405 million and 18 million shares . 12 on october 27 2011 web.com announced the completion of the network solutions acquisition . 13 this was immediately followed by the departure of ceo kelly and other key leadership . large scale employee layoffs began the following day as well . by december 31 2011 over half of the office space in the herndon va based headquarters had been vacated and on march 31 2012 the company s belleville illinois office was closed . 14 registry and registrar business edit network solutions inc. nsi first operated the domain name system dns registry under a sub contract with the u.s. defense information systems agency disa in september 1991 . nsi gave out names in . com . org . mil . gov . edu and . net for free along with free internet protocol ip address blocks . this work was performed at the chantilly offices of gsi the primary contractor a corporation formed by infonet to avoid foreign ownership of u.s. government contracts . citation needed the network information center at sri international had performed the work under elizabeth j. feinler since 1972 . 15 in 1992 nsi was the sole bidder on a grant from the national science foundation to further develop the domain name registration service for the internet . in 1993 3 nsi was granted an exclusive contract by the national science foundation nsf to be the sole domain name registrar for . com commerce . net network and . org organization top level domain tld names a continuation of work nsi had already been doing . 16 nsi also maintained the central database of assigned names called whois . a contract was given to boeing to operate the . mil registry and was also performed by nsi under subcontract . in 1995 the national science foundation gave network solutions authority to charge for domain name registrations . network solutions charged 100 for two years registration . the fee was imposed on all domains and 30 % of this revenue went to the nsf to create an internet intellectual infrastructure fund . 16 17 18 in 1997 a lawsuit was filed charging network solutions with antitrust violations with regard to domain names . 19 the 30 % of the registration fee that went to the nsf was ruled by a court to be an illegal tax . 20 21 this led to a reduction in the domain name registration fee to 70 . 22 23 in the 1990s network solutions implemented a policy of censoring domain names . this came to light when jeff gold attempted to register the domain name shitakemushrooms.com but was unable to . further aggravating the controversy was network solutions automated screens blocked the registration of shitakemushrooms.com though the domain name shit.com had been successfully registered . 24 network solutions argued that it was within its first amendment rights to block words it found offensive even though it was operating pursuant to contract with a federal agency . 16 25 network solutions 100 charge which many parties believed was excessive in addition to its monopoly position in the market was one of the contributing pressures that resulted in the creation of the international ad hoc committee and its failed attempt to take control of the domain name system and to the us department of commerce ntia releasing the white paper and ultimately contracting with the internet corporation for assigned names and numbers icann to administer the dns . with the formation of icann in 1998 the domain name industry opened up to partial competition with nsi retaining its monopoly on . com . net and . org but having to recognize a separation of registry which manages the underlying database of domain names and registrar which acts as a retail provider of domain names . to achieve this separation nsi created a firewall between the two new divisions of the business creating separate technical infrastructure organizations and facilities . by the end of 1999 the fee for registration had been reduced from 34.99 26 to a wholesale rate of 6 per year to registered resellers . in august 2009 network solutions notified customers that its secure servers were breached and led to the exposure of names address and credit card numbers of 573 928 people who made purchases on web sites hosted by the company . susan wade a spokesperson for network solutions said we really feel terrible about this . at the time of this writing nsi does not know how their servers were compromised . one year later in august 2010 network solutions discovered that one of their widgets offered to their domain registration and hosting customers was capable of distributing malware by sites displaying it . as many as 5 000 000 of their registered domains may have been affected by the hack . the affected widget was at least temporarily addressed by network solutions who were able to make changes to the code to prevent it from loading . 27 controversies edit weblock service edit in january 2014 network solutions chief security officer geof birchall sent an email to customers stating that the company would be automatically enrolling customers in a new security program called weblock for an initial charge of 1 850 for the first year and 1 350 each subsequent year . the company claimed the cost offset new security features to protect domains including registering as a certified user and confirmation of configuration changes with those certified users . 28 ... to help recapture the costs of maintaining this extra level of security for your account your credit card will be billed 1 850 for the first year of service on the date your program goes live ... after that you will be billed 1 350 on every subsequent year from that date . if you wish to opt out of this program you may do so by calling us at 1 888 642 0265 . web.com coo jason teichman later clarified that the program would actually be opt in saying we did not do a good job in wording that email and it s not our intention to enroll anyone in a program they don t want . 29 controversy over domain name front running edit for more details on this topic see domain name front running . network solutions offers a search engine which permits users to find out if a domain name is available for purchase . 30 unregistered domain names entered into this search engine are then speculatively reserved by network solutions . 30 this reservation can be removed by anyone immediately by contacting network solutions customer service hotline or it will automatically unreserve within four days allowing the domain to be freely registered anywhere . also visitors searching for domain names on their website allow the reservation when they click ok on the reservation confirmation dialog box . clicking cancel will prevent the domain name from being reserved . on january 8 2008 domain name wire published a story alleging that network solutions practices domain name front running . 30 if you try to register a domain at network solutions but decide not to register it you won t be able to register it anywhere else the article says . 30 network solutions registers the domain in its company name with the words this domain is available at networksolutions.com . 30 circle id reported on january 8 2008 that jonathon nevett vice president of policy at network solutions and one of the seven members of the icann community who was consulted by the icann committee looking at registrar abuse of domain tasting