Though NSI, a unit of VeriSign, has been selling the data for more than a year, it's recently stepped up marketing efforts. NSI spokeswoman Cheryl Regan said the domain name registrar's actions are no different than other companies'. Credit card companies do it.
Telecom companies do it.
Some companies pushing upstream against the dot-com economic slump are looking to cash in by selling the details people once thought were private, and the Web makes it easier to slice and dice information and distribute it broadly. That increase also has caused privacy advocates to become increasingly alarmed about databases compiled from information that's public, such as court filings and voter registration data. But NSI is assembling the data into manageable packages that include details such as whether a company is taking security measures or whether it sells products online, letting marketers better target the sites' owners. The company said it is removing e-mail addresses from the information sold to marketers. Privacy advocates are concerned that not only is the domain name registrar selling information, but it has yet to directly contact businesses to tell them their domain details are being hawked.