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T A B L E__T A L K Having trouble getting the mail-in rebate for your new computer? Vent and offer suggestions in the Digital Culture area of Table Talk   Search for technology books, software and more at barnesandnoble.com Search by:  Keyword Title Author     R E C E N T L Y To catch a thief By Wagner James Au In this new 3-D game, the emphasis is on stealth instead of shooting (02/10/99) Let's Get This Straight By Scott Rosenberg Video killed the Microsoft star: The company's tape demonstrated its own ruthlessness (02/09/99) Lawyers, guns, money? By Janelle Brown Pundits and insiders reveal their personal preparations for the Y2K disaster (02/08/99) Let's Get This Straight By Scott Rosenberg Why is it so hard to find a valid yardstick for measuring Web traffic? (02/05/99) Night of the living day traders By Dana Blankenhorn Meet the new breed of Net-obsessed, short-term stock traders (02/04/99) - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE 21ST FEATURES ARCHIVES - - - - - - - - - - 21st Log Blurred lines in Times' Amazon story

The scandal domain name game Viewed through the lens of domain registrations, Monicagate looks tawdry in a whole new way. BY PATRICK J. SHIELDS Editor's note: Many of the links in the following story point to adult or pornographic sites, so be warned if such material offends you. What do President Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, Kenneth Starr and Linda Tripp all have in common? If looking up Internet domain registrations is your substitute for surfing the Web for erotica, as it is for me, you'd know that none of these principals in our long national soap opera controls his or her own name's Internet address -- presidentclinton.com, monicalewinsky.com and so on. Clinton scandal domain names have evolved into their own little economy: Clinton's defiant stance and the Republicans' intransigence have actually helped to create an enduring financial opportunity for those domain-name speculators, squatters and -- most numerous of all -- porn-site operators who have seen fit to commandeer the better and more current scandal-related addresses. But as their fortunes rise and fall with each new turn of events and sites appear and vanish like froth on the torrent of news, the domain registration records offer a fun house-mirror reflection of the past year's events. Direct traffic from scandal-related names that users type directly into their browser window is an asset, according to Beth Mansfield, who runs the Persian Kitty directory of adult sites. But Mansfield says that the real source of value in such names is the traffic derived from search engine lookup results, which sometimes highly rank a site whose domain name matches the search terms. Still, the prominence of porn traffic in this economy doesn't mean that the domain-name speculators who grabbed names hoping for a quick sale have all come up short. Some have received offers, and there's been at least one significant sale recently (of Lewinsky.com). Some are still holding out for the big score, and others have learned to adjust their expectations -- and make use of a news hook while it lasts. The early days Proof that forgotten scandal names have no salability begins with David Brock, the journalistic scandal-breaker first associated with the name Paula Jones. Brock has no current registration -- no .com, no .net, no .org. He and the American Spectator opened the door for Matt Drudge, but it's now Drudge who, according to the Village Voice, is collecting $2,000 a day in advertising revenue. Arkansastroopers.com? Forget about it -- they didn't actually have sex with anybody, or see anybody having sex with anybody, or have the legal power to make anybody tell everybody else about having sex with somebody. But someone else did, and don't let it be said that other lawyers don't have a sense of humor about it. Independentcounsel.com is registered and used by one John W. Toothman, P.C., aka "the Devil's Advocate" -- a legal firm whose primary business is to monitor and challenge excessive legal fees on behalf of corporate clients who believe they're being poorly served. "The preeminent national authority on legal fee management," Toothman and co. could perhaps have turned their skills toward the Starr office's $50 million bill. Kennethstarr.com is not fully operational but has merely been "reserved, using WebXess Domain Parking Service." Kenstarr.com is registered by a Seattle consulting company that put up a single page with a link to the Starr report, discreetly informing us that "this Web site is for sale," but the page is now gone. Kennethwstarr.com languishes unregistered. N E X T_ P A G E .|. Memo to Bill: Your domain is owned by a resident of Tehran