Now, on the Internet, it can also be headache and diarrhea. Online analysts are annoyed. InterNIC, the government-funded agency that assigns such names, is scrambling. To prevent misrouted E-mail or repeat Web addresses, InterNIC assigns every computer network on the Internet a unique numerical address with a character equivalent. These character names, called domains, allow you to send E-mail without having to memorize a long numerical address.
Few companies use more than one domain name.
No organization needs 150. Yet, Fleishman says, a sort of paranoia has spread among technically naive companies because of past exploits. Fleishman says he believes InterNIC made a mistake in allowing the companies to take those names. Though InterNIC currently has about 75,853 registered domain names, it has also broadened the maximum number of characters in a domain name to 24, allowing for more variety. But discussion on the marketing mailing list has been critical of InterNIC, saying their registration policies have been lax when it comes to big business.