Oct 9, 2026 · 33 min · 15 segments
**Listen to more of The Big Story here:** http://swap.fm/l/wi-bigstorypod-feeddrop Right now, there are no rules to keep you from owning a bitchin’ corporate name as your own internet address…
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.
No burger underscore king dot com either, yet.
"Are you finding that the Internet is a big thing?" asked Jane Holbert, 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." I explained a little bit about what the big thing is and how it works, and about the net name gold rush that's going on.
I told her how important domain names are on the Internet, kind of like a phone number.
It's where you get your email.
It's part of your address.
And I explained that savvy business folks are racing out and registering any domain name they can think of, their own company names, obviously, and generic names like drugs dot com and sex dot com, and silly names that might have some kind of speculative value one day, like roadkill dot com.
Some companies, I told Jane Holbert, are even registering the names of their competitors.
"You're kidding," she said.
"I am not," I told her, recounting the story of the Princeton Review, the Manhattan-based company that sells SAT prep courses, and how it registered the name of its archrival, kaplan dot com.
Now the lawyers are working it out in court.
Very ugly.
We'll get to that later.
"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." "So could Burger King," I said, and Jane Holbert rang off looking for some MIS person with the answers.
How much do you think McDonald's dot com is worth? What could you sell MTV dot com for? Is there gold in them thar domains, as a lot of people seem to think, or is it just fool's gold? No one knows the answers to these questions, though they are being asked very pointedly in federal court, as well as in the boardrooms of a number of the nation's biggest companies.
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.
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.
No burger underscore king dot com either, yet.
"Are you finding that the Internet is a big thing?" asked Jane Holbert, 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." I explained a little bit about what the big thing is and how it works, and about the net name gold rush that's going on.
I told her how important domain names are on the Internet, kind of like a phone number.
It's where you get your email.
It's part of your address.
And I explained that savvy business folks are racing out and registering any domain name they can think of, their own company names, obviously, and generic names like drugs dot com and sex dot com, and silly names that might have some kind of speculative value one day, like roadkill dot com.
Some companies, I told Jane Holbert, are even registering the names of their competitors.
"You're kidding," she said.
"I am not," I told her, recounting the story of the Princeton Review, the Manhattan-based company that sells SAT prep courses, and how it registered the name of its archrival, kaplan dot com.
Now the lawyers are working it out in court.
Very ugly.
We'll get to that later.
"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." "So could Burger King," I said, and Jane Holbert rang off looking for some MIS person with the answers.
How much do you think McDonald's dot com is worth? What could you sell MTV dot com for? Is there gold in them thar domains, as a lot of people seem to think, or is it just fool's gold? No one knows the answers to these questions, though they are being asked very pointedly in federal court, as well as in the boardrooms of a number of the nation's biggest companies.
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.
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