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NSI Accused of Cybersquatting
ckd writes "digitalMASS is reporting that NSI is being sued for cybersquatting by an Alabama resident who claims that they're holding on to expired names long past any reasonable time period (kam.com, listed as expiring in 1996, for example)."
NSI is simultaneously the company that assigns domain names and enforces their assignment, answering to no one and overseen by no one.
But ask yourself, what would be gained by a contrary holding? Is the NSI supposed to take money out of one pocket and put it into another pocket, thereby satisfying the principle of "paying" for a domain name (as distinguished from "squatting")? Make sure you read to the bottom of the article: nothing in NSI's agreement with ICANN precludes this behavior, as long as it isn't extreme enough to qualify as "warehousing", which clearly isn't the case here.
Squatting is bad in principle, but it's a necessary reality of any centralized system of domain-name assignment, which time and experience have shown is the only practical way of accomplishing this necessary service. The only alternative is bigger government and more Federal oversight of the process through the FTC and other administrative bodies, something I have no real fears of, but which lots of the rest of you seem to worry about.
-- Anne Marie
"And 'day to day' checking has become tiresome."
:) It also served as an auto emailer to send daily test messages to a friend when he was just setting up his DSL account.
I faced this same problem, so I wrote a shell script that checked WHOIS a few times a day, and would email me if a name became available.
Although I never was able to get the domain I wrote it for, I did learn a few things about UNIX scripts
-----
D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
Here's their intro:
The Public DNS Service is a public service provided by Granite Canyon Group, LLC. The Service offers both primary and secondary DNS free of charge to anyone who asks. The Service maintains UPS protected FreeBSD servers that satisfy DNS queries. The servers are geographically separated and all are connected to the Internet via 7x24 dedicated lines with disjoint routes to the Internet's North American backbones.
The Public DNS is useful if you:
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D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
- pay only 10 bucks a year/domain
- change contacts at will through a web interface, you just log in.
- change dns servers at will -- no more ridiculous NSI "fax me your family's birth certificate from 12 generations back, and a detailed log of your last 14 bowel movements"
- a whole bunch more that you'll just have to look up for yourself
Basically, they let you do whatever you want to your domain name. In a strange twist, they give you the responsibility to look after your own domain. Gee, I don't know if I can handle that. I really feel much more comfortable letting an anonymous corporate overlord tell me what I can and can't do with what I supposedly "own"---------- You are not the contents of your sig.:-p
Sort of like in Catch-22 where Milo Minderbinder (owner of M&M Enterprises) runs multiple companies which all sell products to one another, and to the army. Of course, in the M&M scenario, they all sell to each other at a loss, guaranteeing M&M has the lowest bid to get the contracts; but because M&M only sells to other M&M companies, it makes huge profits :)
Anyhow, sorry for butchering part of Joseph Heller's classic. back to your regularly scheduled flamewar.
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D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
The article says kam.com has expired, fair enough. And is pionting to a redirect, ok.
But, why is kam.com still resolving to an ip that is owned by a "KAM-CIRCUITS"
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.kam.com
Address: 194.200.169.2
inetnum: 194.200.169.0 - 194.200.169.255
netname: KAM-CIRCUITS
descr: Kam Circuits Ltd
country: GB
admin-c: UPHM1-RIPE
tech-c: UPHM1-RIPE
status: ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by: AS1849-MNT
changed: ianm@pipex.net 19951031
changed: stephenb@uk.uu.net 19990915
source: RIPE
Yes, NSI is stupidly holding on to valuable domain names that they will sell at auction. If they were intelligent, they'd let their competition sell the old domain names.
"Follow the money."
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
I haven't looked at all the registrars, but NSI seems to be the worst at dumbing down the process. They change the term 'domain name' to 'web address' and if you want to change your nameserver's host record, the help for that is under 'changing ISPs'. The process of registering domain names does not need to be something everyone can do. There is a slight technical side to it, that it's best if you understand that before registering. Bah.
I'm surprised /. hasn't picked this up yet:
adobe.com whois lookup
Adobe.com was hijacked by somebody in China today! ftp.adobe.com doesn't work, etc.
I tried selling a domain name on eBay (smashingpumpkins.org), but I gave up trying to transfer it over to the winner of the auction for a year. They required a form to be printed on my "company letterhead" (I was a college student when I registered the domain), and I had to have it stamped and notarized by a public notary. After I filled out all the information, I faxed it to them, and didn't hear anything for months. Tried calling, but couldn't get through to anyone; tried emailing, but god only knows where those went. Eventually, they sent me a paper letter several months later explaining that I left out some information or something to that effect (I don't know how much more you could complete a form). I called and faxed a couple more times, but eventually gave up because I had to get on with Real Life. I absolutely refuse to deal with them ever again, and I know there are many, many other people out there who feel the same way, simply because they are impossible to deal with.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
When NSI announced a policy of holding on to expired domain names and auctioning them a while back, I knew that they were up to something. This news makes it clear that their policy change was just codifying what they'd been doing for a while. The minute they put that policy into effect, I changed my registrar, not wanting to have to ransom my domain back if I accidentally let it expire. People accuse Microsoft of being arrogant, but they pale in comparison to these bloody jackals.
And I'm sure everybody suspects by now that they've got their domain name lookup CGI "bugged" so they can squat interesting names that aren't registered immediately after a search reports that the domain name is free. (See the recent Cringely article for an example.)
I make a point of always using the command line nslookup and whois because it's at least a bit harder to put a bug on those lookups (which go through complicated daemons written in C and might even cause a security problem if badly patched) than it is a web CGI written in Perl or VB.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
As long as they hold it, ONLY THEY CAN BE THE REGISTRAR for that domain. That means that if someone else wants to register it, they have to pay them. And if the original purchaser wants to register it they have to use them AND they have to pay all "back payments", even though they dropped registration.
This is just one more reason why NSI is pure evil.
Ignoring the whole issue about wide-spread use and consistency, this might be possible.
That's like saying "ignoring the problem of objects gaining mass as they accelerate, there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to travel at the speed of light!"
No one is going to use a DNS system that only a microscopic portion of the internet can access. No one is going to say "visit my website at http://indpendentdns.unconventionaltld, but make sure you have OSSDNS servers in your DNS list!" No one is going to use an e-mail account when 99.9% of their mail gets dropped because the mailservers can't resolve the domain name.
Linux caught on eventually, why not this?
Linux caught on eventually among relatively small groups of computer enthusiasts, and is just now peeking into the corporate world. But a decision to use Linux doesn't depend on others doing so for it to be useful.
And "Open Source" would really have nothing to do with it. The source code to BIND is of course already available. Using the term "open source" to mean decentralized and anarchistic just dilutes the meaning of the term.
--
The problem with NSI is that they are serving two roles. They run the root DNS servers. This gives them a guaranteed flow of income no matter how much the customers hate them. Their second role is that of a registrar.
Now, they seem to do a pretty good job of running the root name servers. The problem is that this position gives them an advantage over the other registrars. For one, they are guaranteed to have income. No matter how badly they screw up, or how much market share they lose, they will still have money rolling in because all of their competition has to pay them. In addition, as in this case, they can arbitrarily snap up domains without having to actually pay for them. Any other registrar that wanted to play this game would have to fork over cash to NSI to fund it.
What I think ICANN should dictate is this. One or more companies will be given contracts to register domain names, similar to what is done now. A second group of one or more companies will be given contracts to run the root servers. People who register a domain will pay the first group. The first group will pay some fee to the second group for each domain they want served. The contracts for both groups will stipulate that they are not allowed to own, be owned by, partner with, or be the same as any company in the other group.
The abuse that is happening with the current system is out of hand. NSI is acting like a greedy spoiled brat who is causing untold amounts of grief for thousands of hard working admins out there. Unfortunately, with the current system, they can and will keep doing it. In fact, I would expect their behavior to actually get worse as their market share declines. As they lose customers, past behavior indicates that they will abuse their power more to make up for the lost profits.
No, it's not. My previous company went 4 years without a web site, using the domain for email only. It's not that unusual.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
I don't believe for one second that the law, common sense, morals or _anything_ will prevent these people from savaging me if I try changing registrars- and I don't have the resources to fight them or even raise an issue.
It sucks sucks sucks sucks SUCKS. I'm awful glad some people can afford to attack NSI. I would consider it a big victory if they were destroyed and I had to pay a new fee to freshly register airwindows.com at another registrar. I can't afford to have them hold it for ransom, or swoop in and sell it in the middle of an attempted defection to another registrar. In the world of NSI I'm one of the guys being held up at gunpoint, who hasn't been shot yet. I am not joyous about the situation.
I heard that before, and so I ran a test. Last week, I did an enquiry on the NSI web site of some 5-letter .com names. All pronounceable, but nonsense words in english. I found one that was not taken. I haven't done anything about it except to make a note. In a week, I'll go back and see if it's taken. It's not proof, but it might well be an indication of some hanky-panky in the NSI system.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
My domain name, doofus.org recently came up for renewal. Recently I noticed that register.com allows domain names to be transferred to them. Instead of renewing I just transferred it to register.com and I just throw all of the renewal notices I keep getting from NSI into the recycler. I will never do business with NSI again, since I have found register.com to be far easier to manage my domains.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
The thing I think is lacking is any sort of delineation of NSI's responsibilities and limitations as a registrar. When the U.S. initially gave them monopoly registrar status, they were evidently not given adequate restrictions on how they could conduct business. Seems to me that the international community (ICANN?) needs to come up with a set of rules for registrars and impose them. The current situation reminds me of the free rein and large land tracts the railroads were given in order to induce them to build the U.S. rail system. Once that had happened, laws were finally imposed to reduce their depredations (read the novel "The Octopus" for a flavor of what it meant to have your community under the thumb of a railroad). I think we've reached that stage now with the internet.
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
The results were even faster acting for a friend of mine testing our theory that people lie in waiting for any name based on popularity. He however used NSI's domain name checker directly through their web interface, to find that on the 10-12th look up (usually from varying IPs) the name would be claimed.
This of course lead to our script idea, that would generate random crap, distribute a largish list to various clients, and have them all periodcally pick a random on every few mintues and try http://www.--- on it. This would last a week and a new list would be made. Compiled statistics on how many attempts, when and from where had been made on each domain, and when these domains had been claimed would then be sent back to be reported in some parsed form. The new list would then be worked through. We hoped that this would eventually discourage people squatting on this basis, due to cost.
Now I realize that cost may not be a factor for someone like NSI, and I realize that random crap may have to be generated from dictionaries and rules. We were further hoping that through a movie name generator (add the or a small set of adjectives to any noun) would cause enough companies to loose their prefered sites, that there'd be some public out cry.
We didn't ever implement this thoguh. We get paid for other work.
I just got a four letter domain (www.z4ce.com) though I'm not sure how difficult it is to receive such a name... mine is pretty unique:)
What exactly would be the most prohibitive problems with starting an "Open Source" DNS? Seeing as how I'm shooting an unresearched, off-the-hip question I'm probably begging to be flamed, but as far as I know, my ISP is responsible for providing me with a DNS. Is there anything preventing them from starting their own dns servers with their own tables? Or for that matter, referring to a master DNS not run by NSI. Ignoring the whole issue about wide-spread use and consistency, this might be possible. It may take a while, but most worthwhile things do.
If you don't like a piece of software, write your own. If you don't like an OS, write your own. If you don't like a service, write your own. The same holds true here. If you don't like the way NSI works, build your own. Afterall, they did it with that openCDDB thing, and secondly with the cue cat. Why not this? No need to answer to NSI or ICANN, just start up your own movement to provide DNS service. Give out domains for free. Develop as many TLD's as you want. It would just need an organized effort, as with any grass-roots endeavor. Linux caught on eventually, why not this?
Here in Australia we have a couple of government departments/agencies that will deal with this type of complaint.
The first is the State run (I think?) Fair Trading department where disgruntled patrons can lodge notices of unfair trading or lack thereof. The other is the federal run Australian Consumer and Compeition Commision (ACCC) that deals with companies trading illegally and so forth.
With the number of stories that surface about the NSI on here and other places if this were a company in Austrlia there'd be hell to pay.
I don't think that billing cycle could possibly be as long as the four months it's been since the domain expired. And "day to day" checking has become tiresome. This Alabama resident is right on - I hadn't thought of it in terms of cybersquatting, but now that he mentions it, that's the obvious conclusion. It's not fair to the other registrars or to the people who want to buy some of the dead domain names of Network Solutions is allowed to keep the domains for an extended period of time. I hope the suit will open the eyes of more people so they can see NSI's evil business practices.
ugggh... my post kinda got garbled there. Let me repost that, for your viewing pleasure:
Perhaps THIS
Seriously, reposting stories that were posted a year ago is one thing, but COME ON! This was posted like 3 days ago!
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
For the non-lawyers (include me in that category), self-dealing is an interesting concept in the law. Here's the definition from Black's Law Dictionary: Relates to transactions wherein a trustee, acting for himself and also as "trustee," a relation which demands strict fidelity to others, seeks to consummate a deal wherein self-interest is opposed to duty.
Xerithane,
I'm going through exectly what your going through, after moving from Arizona to IL, I dont even have access to my old school account and after months of getting annoyed i tried the same stuff you said and faxed several times, and today they send me this e-mail saying my licence was not legible on the fax! WTF! I am like this close to blowing these MF's out of earth. I called their tech support and the answering system hangs up on yoru saying it's busy serving other customers (it doesnt even put you on the freaking hold).
And their domain update crap is so outdated. It's hard to update anything there.
--
The trend in legislation is plain to see: whoever has greater potential financial gains at stake will win any dispute. If no clear financial gain can be argued, then whoever already has more money will win. Look at the example of Corinthians.com. An American citizen with an interest Paul's Letter to the Corinthians registered this domain years ago, and has been serving up content related to this book of the New Testament on the site. A Brazilian soccer team, the Corinthians (go figure) decided they wanted to have Corinthians.com in addition to Corinthians.com.br. So they petitioned to have the domain name ripped from the current owner. They won. I think all of the sh*t about "good faith" only applies until a corporation with lots of money shows up asking for the domain name. At that point, the bidding opens up, whether or not someone already owns the domain name.
I think the time has come for an alternative to the DNS system, so that those of us who don't want to participate in the corporatization of the web can just "move away". Then we can all just laugh at NSI and their customers as they traffic in domain names that noone will ever use.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
I tried to register a domain one night early last year. Near the end of the process, my browser crashed. It was late, so I decided to go home and finish the job in the morning. Guess what! By the time I got back, the domain had been registered by somebody else, and a few minutes of research turned up that they were an NSI employee! Argh.
Xerithane,
on your page you indicate that you have no public email address. if it would be any help at all, i will be glad to set you up an email account on my server with absolutely no strings attached. i can do this in five minutes, you can choose from several domains i control, and as far as i'm concerned you can have it for as long as you need it, no charge. drop me email if this will help.
"I will gladly pay you today, sir, and eat up
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
Anyone else heard of such nonsense from or favorite registrar?
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
I am so happy to see this
I hope to see a lot more -- I'm generally against a lot of lawsuits but I really have no choice but to feel utter dispise towards that company.
My recent dealings with them have been absolutely horrendous, here is a page about it.
Not only have I had horrible experience with their customer service department, but also they're utilities for updating and registering are so far behind the rest of the competitors I can't imagine why anyone still does business with them.
The biggest thing I dont understand about them, is that since they lost their monopoly they now only account for 40% instead of 100%? A 60% loss in market share and they still seemingly refuse to restructure their obviously defunct customer service department and registration tools?
This, above all, deserves to be a Fucked Company life member.
My worst experience with them, was getting my contact record changed when the email address expired very suddenly. After explaining to them the situation and getting a canned response back then responding to that, then getting another canned response back I finally figured out what to do. You have to FAX them something. Wow, I thought we were living in a digital age, hell no. So I faxed it, nope - they lost it twice! Finally, I get my contact record changed (after 2.5 months of arguing with them) and when I tried to update my domain (nerdfar.org) they are refusing on the grounds that I have not properly proved my identity - yet my contact record is updated.
If there is a law against this I'd love to nail em for it -- not for any money, I just want my domain to be functional again.
Well, this is one hell of a rant.
Morale of the story, screw NSI and use register.com or another one of the registrars because NSI's head is so far up it's ass it's making the slashdot trolls envious.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
For anybody that is interested
I won. As of 8:56:14 Eastern Standard Time, the nerdfarm.org domain name was modified and pointing to a functional server.
For those of you who dont know, nerdfarm.org is a community discussion forum that is still under development but is mostly functional. If you are interested check back to nerdfarm.org in a couple of days, and I'll get the about document posted up there.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
In my own quest for a domain name, my first choice was listed as expired in WHOIS, but was not available. I emailed NSI asking about its status, and they responded with a standard answer that had no relevance to my question. I then contacted another registrar, and asked them about it. But they told me that can't do anything until NSI relinquishes the name.
So then I called NSI, waited on hold for 20 min, and spoke with a service rep. At this point, the expiration date was > 3 months old. But he told me, well, not much. The WHOIS database can't be considered accurate. There was no standard procedure for relinquishing names (in contradiction with the stated 100 days from the article). They could not give any information about the status of the name, whether it had been renewed or declined. He recommended I contact the registrant. I told him I'd tried that via email, but the listed email was dead. He said he would try a conference call, but the registrant didn't answer the phone.
The final response was basically, 'oh well. try back later. first come, first serve.'
What I don't understand is why the WHOIS database is so out of date (in my case, the domain name was listed as re-registered six months after the original expiration date. On my calendar 180 days > 100 days, but perhaps that's not so in Internet time).
I guess silly me for assuming their internal computer records would automatically update the WHOIS records. But I now realize NSI uses the more secure paper invoice & file-cabinet methods; it's Y2K compliant after all.
So, yes, I'd believe that NSI is effectively 'cyber-squatting' on domains. Will anything come of this? doubtful.
-----
D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
It would be months, sometimes years, before the name became available again, and you could use it until then.
We used to always register strange names--without paying for them--for parties. For example if someone left the company, we'd get "GOOD-LUCK-ON-YOUR-NEW-JOB-FRED.COM" or whatever, post our party pictures there, and NEVER pay for it. And it would last for quite some time before NSI took it away.
The downside of this is that people who register and sit on reams of names never had to pay for them. I mean, it's one thing if they had to shell out $70 a pop to register yes-on-xxx.com, no-on-xxx.com, and hope there's a buyer, but when they're not paid up, it's a little annoying.
I don't think it's malice, the software at NSI just must be poor at tracking these things. I hope this lawsuit sheds some light on the matter.
--- Speaking only for myself,
NSI's head is so far up it's ass it's making the slashdot trolls envious.
Trolls have feelings, too.