Back in the early days of Frogans technology development (you thought I was going to say “of the Internet”), September 7, 2001 to be exact, Jim Trageser wrote “The other part of frogans that can either be a great strength or a debilitating drawback is the fact that to publish frogans slide you have to have a frogans address”. One of the reasons that this could be a drawback was that, at the time, each frogans address was to cost $80 for two years. Fortunately, the price has dropped four fold since then (it’s now 12 bucks per year, $20 for two years).

Anyway, I’m going to focus on the strengths of the frogans address. Not that I’m biased (even if I am). If you read the number I wrote on the Frogans Player, you saw that the Frogans Player acts a bit like browser software: It takes a frogans address and uses it to track down and display the frogans in question.

Jim Trageser adds that “there’s no real technological reason that frogans couldn’t have ridden on top of the current domain name system”. But there are real technological advantages in keeping frogans addressing on its own layer, even if you set aside the fact that if STG Interactive couldn’t be the exclusive vendor of frogans address they’d either have to find another way to finance the development and operation of the the main frogans network, the Frogans Player, FSDL, and FNSL, or throw in the towel.

Perhaps the foremost advantage is that of security. All FNSL documents are authenticated by means of digital signatures, which ensures the secure access to, and use of frogans networks, including the main frogans network, which is operated by STG Interactive. For instance, no one can set up a proxy server to alter an address lookup to redirect to a frogans other than the one for whom the address is registered.

Also, the contract between STG Interactive, as provider of frogans addresses, and subscriber of the address binds both parties to their responsibilities. For instance, a frogans containing “adult” content must be declared as such (in its frogans address parameters) so that the end-user has the option to block it by means of the Frogans Player adult filter. If STG Interactive, as operator of the main frogans network, receives a complaint about the “explicit” or “adult” nature of a frogans that is not declared as such, and the complaint appears to be well-founded, STG Interactive will pull the plug on that frogans.

Ownership of a frogans address is public information, as it is in principal with domain names on the Web. But the advantage here is in the centralization of the registry. We’re accountable for what we publish on a frogans. And STG Interactive, for its part, is accountable for Frogans technology.