Verisign Sending Deceptive Domain Renewal Mail?

General_Corto writes: "Declan McCullagh's PoliTech list just forwarded a message detailing how Verisign is sending letters to people who own domains through other registrars, attempting to make them change registrar on renewal. Looking at the letter it is very unclear that you are signing up with a different registrar. Sneaky games are being played."

Comments

"Interland" does this as well

[Evro]

My girlfriend got a "DOMAIN NAME EXPIRATION" notice from Interland. It said something to the effect of "if you don't renew now, you may lose your domain!" The problem is, she registered it through Network Solutions. NetSol must have taken notice of this and thought it was just a fantastic marketing technique.

I registered several through GoDaddy, by far the best one I have ever used, and Godaddy sent me a "warning" notice that Verisign is sending out these deceptive messages, and suggesting we write to icann about them...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 22 Mar 2002 20:52:05 -0000
From: service@godaddy.com
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: A WARNING TO OUR CUSTOMERS

Please be aware that Verisign, Inc. (formerly Network Solutions) is sending via the US Mail, what we believe to be deceptive and predatory domain expiration notices.

The purpose behind these notices is to get the unsuspecting customer to transfer to and renew their domain name(s) with Verisign Inc. at significantly higher prices.

The domain expiration notices are designed so that it is not obvious that the notices are from Verisign, Inc. as opposed to Go Daddy Software. To see a copy of one of these deceptive expiration notices, please go to the following URL: http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/private_vsrn.asp?dis play=letter.

Those customers who fall prey to the Verisign, Inc. scheme will have their domain name(s) renewed at a price more than 3 times higher than would be the case if they renewed with Go Daddy Software.

For a .com, .net or .org domain name renewal, the victimized customer would pay $29.00 to Verisign, Inc. instead of the $8.95 charged by Go Daddy Software.

Those customers who fall prey to this scheme, will not receive any better service or value. They will however be tricked out of $20.05 per domain name.

Renewal notices from Go Daddy Software are sent via email, and always mention the Go Daddy name. You can be sure that any communications you receive concerning your domain name that do not explicitly and obviously display the Go Daddy name are not from Go Daddy Software.

If you believe, as we do, that this practice of Verisign Inc. is misleading, predatory and improper, we invite you to make your feelings known by writing to ICANN (who is the governing body for all Registrar's and Registries) and to Verisign Registry. Email links for both are provided below.

Sincerely,

Bob Parsons, President
Go Daddy Software, Inc.

ICANN Registrar Complaint Form (hosted at InterNIC)
http://www.internic.net/cgi/registrars/ problem-rep ort.cgi

VeriSign Registry Customer Service
info@verisign-grs.com

Good reason for whois server changes

[Leme]

I really can't think of a good technical reason that I need to see the expiration date and other information off of the whois servers. Only information I really care about is the DNS servers and the admin/technical contact.

They should make the whois servers not give this information so other companies can use it as their own personal sales list.