Domain name registrar Network Solutions wants to patent various aspects of a domain privacy service, and has filed a patent application for “Private Domain Name Registration” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The application is technically a continuation of an application the company filed in 2004 but later abandoned. The new application was filed May 25, 2012 and just published (pdf) today.

But wait, doesn’t Go Daddy already have a patent on this?

Sort of. Go Daddy patents related to whois proxy services, but the Network Solutions application compares itself to the services of Go Daddy and explains how it’s different.

The key here is proxy versus privacy. Go Daddy’s Domains By Proxy is a whois proxy service. In a proxy, the service actually becomes the registrant of the domain name. On the other hand, Network Solutions offers whois privacy. With whois privacy, the registrant is still the named domain owner, but the contact information in the whois is that of the service. Here’s an example of a Network Solutions private registration:

A key benefit of a privacy service over a proxy, as explained in the patent application, is that you can transfer your domain to another registrar while maintaining privacy. With Domains by Proxy, you must remove domain privacy before transferring the domain to another registrar.

Other claims in Network Solution’s patent application relate to setting rules for scanning and forwarding postal mail and forwarding email.

The vast majority of whois masking services provided by domain registrars are proxy services instead of privacy.

Patent issued today covers forwarding one domain name to another.

Domain forwarding, a.k.a. URL forwarding.

Every domain registrar offers it, and most give it away for free to their customers.

Type in DNW.com and get forwarded to DomainNameWire.com.

Pretty simple, right?

Did you know that Network Solutions has a patent for “Apparatus and method for web forwarding”?

Today the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a patent (pdf) to Network Solutions for a way of forwarding domain names. It’s a continuation patent based on one Network Solutions filed in 2000 and was granted in 2008, which itself was based on a provisional filing from 1999.

Back then the purpose of URL forwarding, as explained in the patent application, was to help companies and individuals that had set up free hosting accounts with ISPs and service providers. These free services often came with long and confusing URLs (remember Angelfire? Geocities?). Once a site owner realized they needed an easier-to-use URL, they might want to forward that URL to the site with the awkward URL.

Patent covers bulk checking and registration of country code top level domains.

Verisign has been granted U.S. patent number 8,356,081 for “Automated Domain Name Registration”.

This patent, applied for in 2005, is a divisional patent of 7,000,028, which was filed back in 2000.

Which will take you down memory lane…

The genesis of this patent is actually idNames, a company founded by Pinky Brand and Marc Ostrofsky. Network Solutions bought the company in 1998. Network Solutions was acquired by VeriSign in 2000 (and sold three years later).

Although it’s not clear in the patent title, the invention is related to the registration of idNames’ bread-and-butter of country code top level domains.

It covers near-real-time bulk checking of availability of ccTLDs coupled with automated registration of these domain names. Basically it gets fast availability information and then automatically formats the necessary information for each ccTLD registration as required by the registries.

You can read the patent here (pdf).

Company plans more pink slips at iconic domain registrar.

Web.com plans to fire more Network Solutions employees after it acquires the company than it previously thought.

The company, which also owns domain name registrar Register.com, originally thought it would save $30 million through efficiencies. Now it expects to save much more by “cutting senior manager posts, including Network Solutions’ chief executive, and consolidating data centres and applications”.

“There is significantly more overlap than we originally estimated, and so it’s likely going to be more headcount reduction,” CEO David Brown told Reuters.

It looks like those cuts will come from senior management and not lower level and customer service employees.

Register.com and Network Solutions to get married.

Two of the highest priced and oldest domain name registrars are getting married.

Web.com, which owns Register.com, will pay $405 million plus 18 million shares of Web.com stock as well as take on Network Solutions’ debt.

The cash portion of the deal will be funded with new debt: $600 million of First Lien Credit Facilities and $150 million of Second Lien Credit Facilities, as well as a $50 million revolver. The new debt will also pay off the remaining $84 million of debt from the Web.com acquisition of Register.com in 2010. After closing, the combined company will have $740 million of net debt.

Network Solutions is owned by a number of investors, primarily General Atlantic LLC.

The two domain name registrars have watched their market share suffer in favor of lower priced rivals such as Go Daddy, but have still managed to keep millions of domain names at higher prices. Typical registration prices at the registrars is about $35 per year. Their customers are less price-sensitive and often purchase full online presence packages.

The message from Web.com is clear: Register.com was a good acquisition for the company, so Network Solutions make sense as well.

I suspect we’ll see more consolidation in the registrar space over the next year.