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Mar072008
Network Solutions - wrong any way you slice it
I know this isn’t exactly new news to some of you, hey i’ve been busy here at Period Three since January, but I just personally got hit in the face with what I believe is probably one of the most unethical things in my corner of the professional world. Network Solutions, apparently “front-running” locked down a particular domain name one of my business partners was looking at. After a really exciting discussion one evening on a new business venture my buddy went out on the web and performed a “whois lookup” on a domain name idea, the name of the new business venture to be exact and it turns out that they, Network Solutions, the place he did the lookup at immediately locked the domain up. They couch this in the vein of “customer protection“, they say they are protecting their customers from front-running.1. By holding the searched domains at Network Solutions for a short period, it allows our customers time to decide whether this is the domain name that they really want to register.
2. Although the domain name isn’t specifically held for the initial customer who searched for it, this reserve period helps to protect our customers against domain front running.Who said we were your clients yet?
They also don’t seem to have a problem with locking up others’ copyrighted names, like microsoft-dell.com to name one…
I’m not normally an all is black or white kind of guy, but in this case i’d have to say front-running is front-running no matter how you present it, the facts are thus; I’m effectively locked out of gaining the intellectual property i’ve created in the name of my new business - unless I get it from Network Solutions.
I sincerely hope they wind up paying a huge price for this practice. Go get ‘em Go Daddy, take ‘em down!
Sources:
TechCrunch
circleid
Domain Name News
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Posted at 2:56 pm on 03/11/08
brandon
I’ve always had the fear that doing a WhoIs lookup would provide someone sneaky a “tell” on my intentions for securing a domain name. I always try to avoid looking up until I am ready to purchase for that reason.
Is Network Solutions still charging $35/year for domains as well?
Another scummy practice: Do you ever get those notices in the mail from “Domain Registry of America”, informing you and your customer of an impending expiration? Their wording tries to dupe the unsuspecting to switch domain registrars to them, at a higher rate, while basically inferring that they currently are the registrar. Awful.
Posted at 4:20 pm on 03/11/08
Gene
I get those all the time, very scummy. I actually had some dude call me once from an unlisted number and try to scam me out of giving him my domain login info.