Spainless

A problem at the .es registry shows the importance of stable registries with good technology backbones.

Web sites using Spain’s .es domain disappeared from the world for a couple hours Tuesday. The problem was with the .es registry, Esnic, which is the equivalent of VeriSign to the .com and .net world. Think regarding the money that would be lost if something like this happened to a major domain?

From news notes:

Madrid, Aug 30 (DPA) The biggest blackout in Spain’s internet history had shut down websites, e-mail and other services using the domains for at least two hours.

Tuesday’s interruption was caused by a software error at Esnic, which manages the country domain name .es, from the word Espana meaning Spain, notes stated Wednesday.

The blackout affected more than 400,000 websites. It was described as the biggest ever affecting a country domain for technical reasons.

‘Spain simply vanished from the net,’ stated users who had been unable to access Spanish newspapers, bank accounts or chatrooms.