Countless well-established domain names were shown as available for registering Friday as a result of a computer glitch at Network Solutions.
For about 1.5 hours Friday afternoon, would-be-registrants who typed in the names of well-known domain names such as Amazon.com, Yahoo.com, and even Wired.com got messages saying those Internet addresses were available.
Network Solutions officials said the company corrected the problem by 6 p.m. EST and that the glitch stemmed from an error involving its online messaging system.
Although registrants got messages saying that certain domains were available, no one is believed to have actually switched over a site that belonged to someone else, a spokeswoman said. The glitch did not affect how domain information was stored in internal systems, she added.
Still, for a while many Net users were startled to see that some of the most coveted names on the Internet were apparently available.
"One of my staff was checking new domains and was shocked to find first that worldexperience.com was available, then yahoo.com, then amazon.com, then wired.com, then, the icing on the cake, networksolutions.com!" said Jim Conway, president of Worldexperience.com, in an email message.
The incident apparently is not related to the domain hijacking incidents that affected Network Solutions earlier in the week.
