Home

Featured in Wall Street Journal · Forbes · Newsweek · MSNBC · USA Today · New York Times ·  Boston Herald

August 27, 2012

Domain Sales

Latest News

Articles

Dear Domey

Resources

Archive

YTD Sales Charts

The Lowdown

Legal Matters

Letters to Editor

Classified Ads

About Us

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lowdown



Jan. 9, 2008 Post

Here's the The Lowdown from DNJournal.com! Updated daily to fill you in on the latest buzz going around the domain name industry!

Compiled by Ron Jackson (Editor/Publisher)

 

Over the last 24 hours Network Solutions has taken the fiercest corporate beating I've seen in this industry since the last big registrar debacle involving the now disgraced Registerfly.com. I'm sad to say that they deserve the nearly universal condemnation they  

have received and they will continue to deserve it until they reverse the outrageous policy that came to light yesterday. When people visit the NetSol site NetSol virtually peers over the visitor's shoulder (without telling them they are being spied on) and immediately registers every available domain the visitor conducts a search for! They then lock that domain up for four days unless you pay them $35 to let it go (in the meantime anyone else can register the idea you entered in their search bar providing they pay NetSol's ransom). Since they have registered the domain it is no longer available to register at any of the many registrars that charge far less for better service. When they finally do get around to letting the names go they will be instantly 

snapped up by domain tasters so there is a very good chance the person who came up with the idea for the domain will never get it. NetSol is banking on that threat to pry the sky high $35 fee out of the visitor's wallet.

To make matters worse, NetSol then insulted everyone's intelligence by labeling what they are doing as a "customer service". They explained that the only reason they are stealing their visitor's ideas is to keep them from being stolen by someone else (so called front runners)!. Try doing that at your local bank. "Honest officer, I only held them up to make sure the money was 

safe from the real bank robbers!" The irony is that NetSol, contrary to their lame protestations, is now committing front running themselves - not to mention wholesale trademark infringement as they are now the registered owners of thousands of TM domains including those bearing the brands of some of their closest competitors. As just one example, as of this writing they own www.dotsterdomainnames.com and are displaying a Network Solutions banner on that infringing domain. The fact that they intend to drop it in four days (unless they can sell it of course) doesn't absolve them of the infringement on this and thousands of other domains. 

This spectacularly unethical  

What if McDonalds started registering 
Burger King domain names and putting 
their own ads on those domains?  

practice has understandably received virtually universal condemnation across the web since it was uncovered. Over the past 24 hours there have been hundreds if not thousands of posts blasting NetSol (talk about a public relations nightmare for a company that was already held in low regard to begin with - partly because they charge 3-5 times more for a domain registration than most popular registars do). We still fully expect that Network Solutions will stop this abuse of their potential customers. Until they do, visiting their site is simply asking to be mugged.
(Posted Jan. 9, 2008) To refer others to the post above only you can use this URL:
http://www.dnjournal.com/archive/2008/dailyposts/01-09-08.htm


For all current Lowdown posts - Go Here


We need your help to keep giving domainers The Lowdown, so please email [email protected] with any interesting information you might have. If possible, include the source of your information so we can check it out (for example a URL if you read it in a forum or on a site elsewhere). 


 Home  Domain Sales  YTD Sales Charts   Latest News  The Lowdown  Articles  
Legal Matters
  Dear Domey  Letters to Editor  Resources  Classified Ads  Archive  About Us


BuyDomains.com
afternic.com

 

 

Copyright 2007 DNJournal.com - an Internet Edge, Inc. company. 
No material may be copied from this site without expressed written consent.