New.net

New.net is an alternate DNS root system, and publishes NewDotNet, an application that makes use of these domains. The top-level domains New.net provides include: .agent, .arts, .auction, .chat, .church, .club, .family, .free, .game, .golf, .inc, .kids, .law, .llc, .llp, .love, .ltd, .med, .mp3, .school, .scifi, .shop, .soc, .sport, .tech, .travel, .video, and .xxx.[1] Of these, .travel and possibly soon .kids and/or .xxx are in conflict with official TLDs later authorized by ICANN to be implemented by other registries. It should be noted that New.net's domains are not authentic TLDs, but are actually third level domains under the new.net domain name space (e.g., example.shop is really example.shop.new.net).

While the Internet is a heterogeneous network and the theory behind New.Net domains is reasonably sound, the reality is at best they'll work for a small percentage of the Internet, at worst they'll cause problems and re-direct valid new.net traffic to a real (conflicting) website by the same name.

Several Internet Service Providers, such as Earthlink, are compatible with New.net domains without any software being installed on the user's computer.


Adware

New.net distributes NewDotNet, an Internet Explorer plugin for Windows that enables the browser to access sites that use these unofficial domain names. It is considered as adware and spyware by McAfee Site Advisor.[3] In a poll of readers of Icann Watch New.Net was considered "The greatest threat to the security of the DNS" as matched against other alternatives [4]

Several different versions of NewDotNet exist. Early versions installed themselves into the Windows directory as a DLL named "newdotnet" followed by a version number, and had no uninstall option. More recent versions create a folder in "c:\Program Files". A version introduced in 2002 (since discontinued) included a pop-up advertising component.

The program functions by inserting itself into the Winsock system, which can in some situations disrupt network connectivity. A typical symptom for dial-up systems is that the user is able to dial out normally but cannot access the Internet. Nothing about an alternative DNS root requires the installation of new software, but one possible explanation for using a browser plug in would be to avoid running public recursive resolvers. New.net also have instructions for setting up your own recursive resolver to query new.net domains but they put these instructions in the ISP information section of their site.

Well-known and generally trusted anti-spyware programs like Ad-Aware and Spybot are usually effective at removing older versions of this software. More recent versions of NewDotNet can be uninstalled using the standard Windows "Add/Remove Programs" control panel or an uninstaller in "C:\Program Files\New.net". Manual removal, if performed incorrectly, can completely disrupt the computer's ability to access the internet. This can be fixed with an LSP Fix program, available here.


Lawsuit

On May 6th, 2003 New.net filed a federal lawsuit in the Central District Court of California against Lavasoft, distributor of Ad-Aware [5]. Their claims against Lavasoft of false advertising, unfair competition, trade libel, and tortious interference were stricken and dismissed with prejudice the following year. [6].

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