http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=21538
--- Comment #8 from Dmitry Timoshkov dmitry@codeweavers.com 2010-02-02 09:46:39 --- (In reply to comment #7)
Isn't the first point of Wine is to make it as compatible with Windows behaviour as possible? Do you really believe users are going to tinker with their hosts file just to let a certain windows application run?
I haven't found a "conformance" keyword but it's exactly what this bug is about if your assumptions are right.
Have you tried the suggested solution before complaining?