This glossary was written and prepared by Blair Bergum of  DNSnews.net
For additions or corrections to this glossary, please send email to glossary at dnsnews dot net

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WAIS

Wide Area Information Servers, is an intelligent distributed information service, where the results of searches influence subsequent searches. The protocol used to access a WAIS database. The protocol format is wais://

WAN

Wide Area Network, uses long distance communication links to connect to distant LAN’s to each other.

WAP

Wireless Application Protocol

warez

the term used to refer to sites that are used by hackers to upload and download illegally pirated copies of software programs.

web address

An example of a web address would be the following:

http://www.MoneyStrategist.com/services/financial.htm which is composed of several parts as illustrated below:

http: protocol

// protocol separator

www subdomain or host name

. separator

domain SLD name

. separator

com TLD name

/ directory separator

services folder name

/ file separator

financial document or filename (also written as financial.htm)

. separator

htm file extension portion of the document name,

(in this case specifies that it is an htm file or a Hypertext Markup Language file)

web-based email

an application that allows users to access their email and read it while it still resides on the mail server, without having to download it to a client or workstation.

web bots

special programs with in FrontPage that allow for added functionality similar to CGI.

web browser

a client-based program that allows the user to gain access to the World Wide Web or any other Web server. The web browser receives and interprets HTML commands and displays the results to the user.

web designer

a computer consultant who designs the website layout.

web developer

a computer consultant who codes and develops a website.

web host

1) service provider who stores ones software applications or data files on their servers to be served up as webpages.

2) a computer server or host connected to a network containing applications and data files to be served to clients.

weblog

are updated websites that point to articles located on other websites, often with comments. The first weblog was also the first website that was designed by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN. This original website has been archived at the W3 (World Wide Web Consortium) at http://info.cern.ch

webpage

a document on the Internet, created by HTML or other technologies, so the document can be viewed by a client's browser.

web server

a server that uses Internet protocols such as HTTP and FTP to respond to web client requests on a TCP/IP network.

website

refers to a location on the Internet that contains the documents or webpages.

website parking

a webpage that acts as a default for a registered domain name.

website redirection

a method of using Domain Name Pointers to redirect users from one requested domain name to another domain name or IP address.

White Paper

1) a plan issued by the DOC which was introduced to ICANN and presented to the 1998 Geneva Convention which outlined the transition for the DNS management from the DOC to ICANN, a private non-profit corporation.

2) an official governmental report.

3) an in-depth non biased information paper.

whois

a software client that allows the lookup of domain name registrants through a clients browser, and provides information of the registrants of a SLD name.

Windows

Microsoft Windows operating system that is installed on windows-based web servers.

WIPO

World Intellectual Property Organization, an organization founded by a treaty by states, where 171 states of the world are members. Created for the providing protection of intellectual property rights throughout the world by making it possible to obtain protection thru a single international procedure for companies doing business on an international level. WIPO was asked by the U.S. government to initiate a balanced and transparent process of Domain Name Registration that includes the participation of the trademark holders and members of the community.

WLS

Wait Listing Service, is the service where a Registrar or RSP for a fee, automatically registers an expired domain name immediately upon expiration on behalf of a new registrant. The WLS is a product developed by Verisign and operated by a sister company SnapNames. The service mark is SnapBack. WLS was approved by the ICANN board in 2002 amongst great controversy, from the public and other registrars who had different competing products.

WML

Wireless Markup Language

WSP

Web-Services Provider.

Working Group B

part of ICANN’s DNSO that is responsible for researching famous marks of TLD extensions.

Working Group C

part of ICANN’s DNSO that is responsible for researching new TLD extensions.

WorldNIC

Part of Network Solutions that was the registrar in the early days of the Internet.  Domains registered with the WorldNIC (pre 1998) are referred to as legacy domains when registered from another registrar through WorldNIC.  The WorldNIC domains were converted into the Network Solutions registry database as late as 2002.

www.

World Wide Web, is the subdomain or SLD of a domain name that contains the webpages that can be viewed publicly.

WWW World Wide Web, is a connection of networked computers and is the public area of the Internet that all clients can access. The WWW is a subdomain of the Internet domain name space. Some websites use the www prefix and others do not. The www. prefix is generally acknowledged to refer to the public space that is available to the public to view web pages placed there. Where the portion of the domain name that does not include the www. prefix, could be for the internal or private viewing of a website or intranet, but not required as such.

W3.org

World Wide Web Consortium, is an international consortium that began in October of 1994 to provide standards for developers and users of the Internet. http://www.w3.org