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Bulkregister Sues Verisign Over Marketing Campaign
zentec writes "An article at Datacenter wire indicates that Bulkregister sued Verisign over their often confusing and pretty slimy mailing campaign. The campaign is (of course) targeted to domains registered somewhere other than Verisign. The mailings are nothing more than domain "slamming", and look like renewal bills rather than a solicitation to renew with Verisign. What's particularily slimy is that the mailings are for renewals on domains either recently renewed with someone else, or for domains expiring between 120 and 180 days! Bulkregister is also seeking an immediate injunction against the mailings saying that they are an impediment to current contracts with their customers." There's also a Reuters article, or see our original story. Bulkregister has run their own sleazy marketing campaign in the past, and paid the price for it.
VeriSign promotion yields lawsuit. This is also about BulkRegister. And I was about to submit it too ;-)
This would definatly fall under falls representation. Although I can't see it being wrong in the situation where The customer was a verisign customer then renewed with another company. dont phone companies do this all the time after you have switched.
I've been wondering when I'd start to see noise about this. I recently received a number fax(!) solicitations to renew my company's domain through a registrar that we've never used. (BTW, aren't there laws against unsolicited faxing)?
The domain registrars have become shady businesses, and its high time that they be accountable for their actions...maybe instead of these companies suing each other, the FTC can start reviewing their processes.
-Turkey
-Turkey
Verisign Plays Dirty!
If you have a domain with them, look into moving it elsewhere, these people do not deserve our business.
things seem to be getting pretty dirty in the domain register business ... are they that desperate for customers?
is that, when I recently tried to acquire a .net domain held by Verisign, I had to send 4 mails before they even responded, and when they eventually did, it was just to say that my request had been forwarded to the sales dept (impressive since I had a cc to sales@verisign.com) and I would be contacted within 24 hours. That was 3 months ago. I've given up and purchased a .be domain instead.
...
I don't know if they're just to busy marketing, or perhaps don't like overseas clients... All I know is that it's damd frustrating to see a domain for sale (at a reasonable price even) and not being able to get a hold on a salesperson
Well... maybe I shouldn't register domainnames anyway. After all, there are so many domains nowadays that the good old reflex of www.somethingyourelookingfor.com rarely send you to a relevant page anymore.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
This was a particularly underhanded marketing campaign and I figured it was only a matter of time before *someone* sued.
Thankfully I had a heads-up to this debacle and was able to contact all my clients and inform them not to transfer (or should I say renew?) their domains to Verisign. Turns out that two of them had already filled out the forms and were just about to send them when I called. Crafty.
DigiSquid Design.
I got one of those letters. For a second I thought DomainMonger had been bought out by Verisign.
I didn't read all the way through the letter before it hit the trash, but i don't remember seeing anything remotely hinting that my site wasn't originally registered with verisign and that I didn't have to send them $29. It's more than sleazy, it's illegal.
D
The first, last, and only tech news site on the net
From now on, they get all of their "renewal" forms back, torn into little pieces. Thoughtful of them to provide a postage-paid return envelope.
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
I think they have a pretty solid case here. Anyone who has seen the letters verisign sent can tell you that they are aboslutely 100% trying to trick people into unknowingly switching registrars. My company has it's domains on dotster, and we've gotten several of these bullshit notices from verisign.
Aside from their sleazy methods of stealing customers, they're a shitty company to deal with (as an intentional customer) as well. A friend of mine got a (real) renewal notice from them (for a domain actually registered with them), and decided he was tired of their fees so he wanted to switch elsewhere. Turns out, you can't transfer a verisign domain in the last 90 days of registration. So to move it away, he had to pay for another whole year.
Go bulkregister!
I hope verisign gets taught a lesson.
__
Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall
I wonder if those companies would start DoSsing each other if they had no law covering their revenues.. and after a little (in internet time) period of chaos, I think that the net could auto-regulate itself.
think about it: if there were no laws covering companies that are making money off the Net, there would be no spam around. Also there would be less bandwidth available, and the net would be less spread. But with no money on the net, 80% of the web contenent would be gone (it's all about flashy animations that have to catch customers)..
would it be worth?
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
I recieved one of their snail mailings to renew a domain name with them.
:)
I threw it out, but I didn't find it all that offensive. This isn't a sweepstake targetting elderly people ("You won the 10 million dollar jackpot! Subscribe to half a dozen magazines to collect your prize!"), most of the people targetted should know better or shouldn't have a domain name in the first place.
Heck, for that matter, look what happens when people forget to renew their domain name. Given teh choice between paying 4-5 times what they otherwise would and recieving poor customer service or having a pr0n site snag it up, which would you choose?
I guess I'll end shilling for now
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Is this a case of the pot calling the kettle black? I seriously don't know who I would root for.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
I got one of those the other day - what got me is they wanted me to "renew" at a cost double than what I currently pay! It reminds me of the AT&T scam where they send you a check that if you cash it they change your phone service. Marketing people are just bad bad people.
Sound waves should be free!
As I wrote in my last journal, Verisign's tactics with their own customers seem to have become more suspect. I especially like how they tried to get me to renew for 2 years @$70 when elsewhere on their site I got 3 years for $69.99. I'd really like to jump ship but it seems transferring registrars has been problematic for so many.
I have a number of domains registered, and IIRC I got a letter for every single one of them. I knew they were BS from the start, but that's only because I've been on the Internet for around 8 years and I know what's going on. To "Joe User" it would probably look legit, and they'd pay three times as much to renew their domains and support more of these letters being sent to other people.
For shame!
-Xuff
Homepage & W
Where 'you have won 1M$'.. with the fine print impossible to find..
The attorney general here sued them.. and won..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I got one of these "bills" too.
I was surprised to get a letter with both my name and my boss's name on it. (he registered my domain for me)
I would agree that it is very slimy, my boss says that he gets like 20 of these everyday.
I have just gotten one of these letters from verisign in the last week for a recently registered domain name.
It was extremely misleading. It took me a long time to figure out if it was a mistake on their part or really was the trick it appeared to be.
I finally had to send email to my registrar and find out if some sort of mistake had been made because there WAS NO WAY TO TELL from reading the mailing.
It was very short, just an expiration notice type simple form, renewal coupon and return envelope. And some warnings about how bad it would be if I didn't renew.
It should be totally illegal.
I consider myself very informed about this sort of thing having worked in IT for a number of years and I had no idea it was a solicitation. I really thought there was some sort of mistake or my host had sold my account or something.
Wax on, wax off baby!
After I recently renewed a couple of my domains, I received their mailings. One has to look really hard to find language that states that it is a transfer. Total slimeballs. I am in the process of changing the registrar of the domains at the gig now. Price, maintenance procedures and slimeball tactics are enough already. I'm voting with my dollars.
"To deny our own impulses, is to deny the very thing that makes us human." - Mouse
I registered through GoDaddy,
I can see the verisign logo on the letter,
I know GoDaddy != Verisign
so what is the problem?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The mailing I got from register.com suggested that it was "very important" that I renew or I'd risk losing my domains. They never mentioned WHICH domains were "at risk".
I stuffed it back in the envelope with 'return to sender' stamped on it, with a pretty nasty note, and reminding them that 1) none of my domains are registered with them, and 2) now I'll never even consider registering new domains with them, thanks to their scam.
No domain registry has the right to steal my business from any other registry, no matter how evil the other one is. Did they think nobody would notice?
My domains I've had since college have my mother's address listed as the contact. Verisign sent her renewal letters for six of my domains, and she opened one to recycle it, thinking it was junk mail. When she read the "danger of expiry" and "please renew" messages, she jumped in her car & drove them over to my new house -- 40 minutes away.
She had read about claim jumping porn sites and was afraid if I didn't get the letters that I'd lost my websites and thus my paycheck. I have since explained to her that verisign are dicks, nobody in their right mind pays $30 per year for a domain name, and that my registrar (directnic) emails me automatically to renew...i just have to reply to the email. Also, that no technology company that does business via snail mail will be in business long enough to survive.
My poor mother. She thought she was helping me out...and instead she was wasting gas & time thanks to scare tactics from one of the least trustworthy companies in the net world.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I get verisign letters for renewal constantly. I have about 10 domains and it seems verisign starts
about 4 months before it expires and sends at least one letter per month and one after it expires. They probably spend 4 bucks a year in postage for each domain they want to renew.
The mailings are nothing more than domain "slamming"
obviously the writer doesnt have a clue as to what slamming is
I used to work at WorldCom, slamming is switching long distance without the customers permission/knowledge, if the customer returns this card to VeriSign, then they give permission, its not VeriSigns fault that the customer is clueless...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
It's like the (some) free speech issues. Our laws don't change just because we have a new way to say or promote something.
Can I bum a sig?
I work for a webhosting company and have had to deal with concerned and confused customers who have recieved emails from the Domain Registry of America, a sister company of Verisign. (I believe.. correct me if I'm wrong. Nonetheless this is very shady business practices and caused me LOTS of hassle.
There's no "I" in Linux.. err..
True, the business practices that some domain registrars have been employing have ranged from the appalling (see article and links) to the amusing and rather clever (marketing the Western Samoa domain digraph - .ws - as "website"). But when it comes right down to it, we're all paying way less than we did when NSI was the only game in town. Given a choice, I'd rather keep careful records and read the fine print than subsidize yet another monopoly.
Please donate your spare CPU cycles to help fight cancer and other diseases
Actually, I believe most of it.
... I don't believe he has a girlfriend. And if there were geek chicks that his friend needed help with, I'm fairly certain he wouldn't have been much help.
I believe you saw the movie.
However, given the following:
1) Brags about having a contact who is a (gasp!) theatre employee
2) Brags about recompiling kernal (and specifies the tech details for some obscure reason)
3) Talks about "jury-rigging" a digitil theatre projector
Oh, darn - there goes karma!
Even Interland.net wants to get in on the action, causing even more problems than Verisign, imho. When Interland sends out their renewal notices, they also look official, but when someone takes the bait, not only is registration transferred to Interland: Tech Name............ Tech Support Tech Address......... 101 Marietta Street Tech Address......... Tech Address......... Atlanta Tech Address......... 30303 Tech Address......... GA Tech Address......... UNITED STATES Tech Email........... hostmaster@interland.com Tech Phone........... +1.8005895060 Tech Fax............. +1.4045860001 Name Server.......... a.ns.interland.net Name Server.......... b.ns.interland.net Changing the nameservers configuration of the domain(s) in question, and effectively downing web services and e-mail MX records of the victims until they realize that they have been duped.
It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end.
It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end.
Its interesting to read people comments about this. However as a person who was in that field long ago..I tend to disagree. Sales are getting tricker and harder to convince the average person to switch to something.
So its more urgent that they come up with tactics to try and persuaed the average user to switch. Sometimes these tacitics are harsh. Other times its not as obivious. Its often a fine line. In the end though someone has to earn a living off of someone cash.
The alternative is to tell the truth. However that is a philosphical debate that we are still debating. My view is that the whole nature of truth is subject to person opinion or needs. In this case the need to survive in a economy that is hard hit.
"Jisms are best served, when the person is lest expecting it"-overheard in IRC channel #E
I've always been a little baffled by the domain registration business. What exactly are you paying for? Do the registries have any costs other than advertising? IIRC, the whole thing is kind of a protected monopoly. I don't think domain names are necessary. I'm willing to live with a single.host.thats.part.of.a.big.domain.com, and I'd be find with an IP address as well. Of course, for dynamic IPs you do need some kind of lookup, but DNS wasn't meant for that to begin with, so something like a search engine would make just as much sense.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
So, when Register.com and Verisign and ALL THE OTHERS send you those "REPLY NOW" letters, just do what I do. Tear off all identifying marks that indicate who you are, write SCREW YOU in big fat letters across the remaining papework with your favourite Sharpie pen, and then stuff it all back in the postage-paid envelope and mail it off to them.
This is known as negative reinforcement, and it's only for situations like this where positive reinforcement is simply not possible.
Eventually, if enough people do this, they will dread paying the return postage (pretty high, actually) and will feel even worse about opening the envelopes that come in.
Kettle
Black
(apparently)
They're obviously trolling the WHOIS database and spamming domain name owners, isn't that illegal or at least against the "official" WHOIS rules?
Why isnt Verisign being punished for this?
I have a big fat linux geek that I would like to convert.
Do you reccomend NTFS or FAT32?
Do you have a link to MSDN that will tell me how to do the conversion?
thx
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Calm down - I'm finishing my article - I officially come out of the closet today!
I recently worked at a company with 23 domains, about half with Net Sol (now verisign), the rest with about three other orgs. It took a flame e-mail to every e-address @ netsol to get action. I have even gotten rude at the office in Herndon, VA.
I want to leave them behind, but where to go?
Do I suffer with the worst, to avoid the possibility of losing my domain to paper pushing idiots?
Veri-slime, what a mess.....
What OS do you want to abuse today?
Heh. WorldCom. It seems slamming is the only way the can get customers. Funny how everyone here hails Vin Cerf (he is chairman of WorldCom). He is nothing more than a common thief.
And then there's Microsoft...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
In a lawsuit both sides lose and the lawyers win, If one company has more money than the other it loses less badley but it still loses.
As I don't care for either company I am rooting for the lawyers dragging this out as long as possible, before giving Verisign a little smackdown.
Nate
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
My response to the last message that I received from Verisign; it was probably never really read by anyone, but I enjoyed writing it. I'm currently working on a letter that I'm going to send to Verisign's marketing department every time that I register a new domain through one of their competitors... :)
Subject: Re: Urgent: ALIENABDUCTIONS.com Is About to Expire
To: VeriSign Renewals
No, it's not. The registration for the referenced domain expires in September of this year, about six months from now.
As the person who receives this email likely had absolutely no say in the decision to spam me, nor in the decision to employ a crude and poorly thought out marketing campaign that is clearly intended to deceive consumers, I will simply ask that person to pass this message along to the people who did make these decisions:
Congratulations. I have registered domains through Network Solutions since 1996; though I have not always been happy with the service that I received, inertia would have kept me working Network Solutions. This marketing campaign, however, has irritated me to the point that I am going to make a point of using another registrar. You've lost one more customer. Nice work.
* * *
It is a dada story -- it has no moral.
I recently got one of those friendly letters from Verisign, and I have to agree that they're absurdly misleading, unless you're paying attention and read all the fine print. While this may not be exactly "slamming", it's fairly close.
Probably the best phone company analogy would be for $LONG DISTANCE CARRIER to send out "bills" for long distance service that contain, burried within the fine print, your agreement to switch your service to theirs. If the company were careful, and the customer weren't, they'd likely get plenty of checks from busy people trying to do the right thing. It's not Verisign's fault that the customer is clueless, but they are definatly trying to exploit it. (Letting them get away with claiming that is like Jeff Bezos saying, "The patent system needs to be reformed!" while at the same time suing B&N for infringing their stupid little patent.)
Illegal? Technically not, because the customers are agreeing to transfer their domains. Immoral? Misleading? Definatly. Worth bringing down the wrath of the FTC/BBB/whomever? Most likely.
Yay for deregulation!
See, you dirty commie lunix bastards, the free market does work!
(shit, I didn't mean that to be a troll...)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
has anyone tried godaddy.com? $70 for 10 years seems a lot better than netsol's $70 for 2 years...
The person I know was a UI Engineer, and VS saw fit to put her underneath the Documentation Manager. This person had no clue what a UI Engineer would do, but the company wouldn't put my friend into a group that made sense. The Doc manager was an evil being from another dimension, and ended up receiving a promotion to Director level, even though everyone who works under her hates her. She basically forced my friend into leaving; meanwhile, every other person my friend worked with wanted her to stay, and eventually several people tried to re-hire her later. She declined.
This is just one example, I'm sure there are tons of stories like this. You don't need to be a genius to know that a company that treats its own employees this bad will propagate this treatment to it's customers. From the domain name business group to the VPN and other groups, no high-level people at that company seem to give a shit about the customers. They've been the dominant player in their field for so long, they they don't care that all their software has bad UI, their customer service is crap, and their interal processes are shot to hell. Now their stock is in the toilet, and you can't be surprised about it.
VS made their own bed.
The hooligans are loose! The hooligans are loose! What if they become ruffians? -- Bill Hicks
I recieved two of these "domain renewal" forms. One of them (from a company whose name escapes me at the moment) at least put "Domain Transfer" near every instance of the word "renewal." Sure it's still underhanded, but they made some tiny attempt to remain above the boards.
Verisign, however, had no mention of domain transfer at all. It only said "Domain Renewal" and looked exactly like a bill. If I hadn't know better, I would have thought that was the bill to renew my domain and I should send in a payment. Then I would be transferred to NetSol without my knowing.
Of course I did realize what was going on for three reasons: 1) I moved away from NetSol when they couldn't do a simple contact info change in under 4 months. 2) My domain registrar (DirectNIC) is cheaper than the "special deal" NetSol was offering. 3) I actually know the name of my domain registrar... and it's not Verisign/NetSol! (See #1.)
Still an underhanded move which only serves to lower my already rock-bottom opinion of Verisign.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
1.2 Required Disclaimer
The solicitation must bear on its face either the disclaimer required by 39 USC 3001(d)(2)(A) or the notice:
The statutory disclaimer or the alternative notice must be displayed in conspicuous boldface capital letters of a color prominently contrasting with the background against which it appears, including all other print on the face of the solicitation and that are at least as large, bold, and conspicuous as any other print on the face of the solicitation but not smaller than 30-point type
There's no sign of the required disclaimer in Verisign's fake invoice. This is a matter for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which has law enforcement powers. They can also cancel Verisign's bulk mailing permit, or deny them permission to mail at all.
Unfortunately, AotC comes from LucasFilm, not DreamWorks.
Not even a good troll...
I have about 30 domains there. I'm so happy to be free of NetSol.
I'd really like to jump ship but it seems transferring registars has been problematic for so many.
I moved over 20 domains from NetSol to Gandi without a hiccup. And Gandi even does secondary DNS for you... Gandi is great.
what about all the other registrars (like bulkregister themselves) doing the same damned thing? it's all a sleazy, slimy game. i'm getting disgusted with the whole internet, it's pretty much devolved into a huge cyber cesspool.
And I was awfully confused for a bit. I come home and open up the mail and think "Who the hell is "Interland" and why are they trying to charge me for domain renewal." I was real close to calling my actual registrar and asking if they changed their name (and why they were trying to move my nameservers) when it hit me that this was the DNS equivalent of "slamming".
I then got *very* irate. (and my roomate was forced to hear me rant about deceptive buisness practices for 20 minutes.) I came very close to calling Interland myself and accusing them of fraud, but decided against it, as it I'm sure they wouldn't have listened.
My local DSL carrier has switched "owners" about 4 times in the last 3 years. Each time I get billed by some company who I don't know, and often they don't even give you a decent letter knowing that you've transfered. Twice I've had my DSL shut down for not paying on time... So. Just beacuse GoDaddy != Verisign now, doesn't mean GoDaddy != Verisign tomorow.
Bottom line is that the "renewal" is bogus and completely out-of-line.
"Mom, Verisign are dicks. Stay a while, have some pie." :-)
Freedom: "I won't!"
One slimy telemarketer slamming trick was to call people and ask, "Can I put you on hold?"
Most folks, in being polite, would say OK, expecting to be put on hold (in the usual telephone sense).
Instead, they had their telephone service switched to another provider, and put on their H.O.L.D. program. [Sorry, I forget what the acronym stood for.] So, strictly speaking, the tele-slime could say that they asked the customer if they wanted it, and the customer did in fact say yes.
The customer did, in fact, get slammed.
Hey, Windows users, there is no such thing as "forward" slash, there is only slash and backslash.
Here's a picture of the notices sent out by verisign.
A while back, some companies were getting in trouble by sending businesses "invoices" for office supplies when they were in fact nothing more than a cheap attempt to get office managers to accidentally sign off on them. I'm pretty sure that you don't see this as much anymore because the offending companies got the smackdown from the government. These "renewal notices" seem to fall under the same guise.
It was baklava, but you get the idea.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I got something similar from register.com (to it's credit, it had the words "domain transfer" in several places).
Weird part was they were offering, along with all my domains (not just the one about to expire), but they were offering me a domain name that belongs to someone else... I hope that was an honest accident...
I have been wanting to register a certain domain name, which also happens to be my last name, for a couple of years now.
The time finally came when it expired, so I thought I'd have a chance to register it. So, I waited a couple of months, then checked the WHOIS database.
To my surprise, it was still held by Verisign, even though the record had long since expired. Upon contacting their customer support, I found that there was no way to release it immediately for registration. Furthermore, if I wanted a "first chance" at registering, the charge was $60 per name and there was still no guarantee of getting it!
I thought that this had to be illegal, but unfortunately, there is no regulatory oversight on matters like this.
In any case, I just recently checked the name, and to my dismay it has been snatched up by somebody else. I might as well give up now.
Thanks for nothing, Verisign.
I've received letters from registrars I don't use asking me to renew my domain(s) with them.
I've also received letters from registrars I don't use asking me to renew domains with them THAT I DON'T OWN. Most strange that... I mean, sure, I live in Omaha, but that doesn't mean I want good-news-bears-of-omaha.org
-- dR.fuZZo
BulkRegister apparently won an injunction:
8 53
http://www.datacenterwire.com/wmview.php?ArtID=
If you're in a large corporation and your billing contact goes to some administrative office with no technical knowledge, Verisign's campaign is mildly filthy.
Ditto if you're a home user who doesn't know about whois or has a convenient way to check expirations via your registrar.
I got mail from VeriSign to renew my domain from them because it was "expiring soon". And repeated several times in the "invoice" is "Reply by May 15", as if the domain they're trying to get me to transfer is expiring then (too bad it expires in October, and I know who I registered through).
The only real indicator it's not just a renewal is the "Renewal and Transfer Authorization" section and step 3 on the "invoice": Sign the form to authorize payment and transfer to VeriSign.
They don't really try to represent themselves as your current registrar, they just don't emphasize the fact they aren't. At any rate, I laughed at their mailing and added them to my list of people not to ever buy anything from.
I loathe, hate, despise, abhor and revile the scummy crew that is now Verisign. I rarely feel moved to violence but they get me close to it. WHAT a foul and awful outfit they are.
Having got that off my chest, I want to say something nice. The people who handle the UK domain registrations are, in my experience, an object lesson in what can be done (I don't want to get into the current WHOIS argument that they have stirred up). It's been a pleasure to deal with them at every level so far.
AND they manage to provide instant turnaround of domain registration for the hefty price of GBP 5 per two years, or about US $8. Based on that, they make an embarrassing amount of money - as they are a not-for-profit business. I don't know how they do it. I have no financial interest in what they do - but am hugely grateful to be working mostly with them and not the ratshit raggle of scumsuckers at Verisign.
..with Domain Transfers.
:)
;)
I'm tranfserring mine now, having realized that $70 is too much. *snicker*
One of my friends did this, and had a lengthy battle with VeriSign over rules that were never printed anywhere(tm). IE, "Well, uh, you uh, can't, uh, transfer unless, uh, yeah, you're uh, paid for like, uh, 90 days more."
So far, mine's going off without a hitch. Got my e-mail noting the transfer and telling me to respond to confirm it's not some yahoo doing it.. Responded, got the, "Well, we're sorry. Think of our children! We live in cardboard boxes!" mail.. Well, not quite, but the way they worded it actually made me feel guilty about transferring my domain away from them, lol.
'course, after having friends go through verifiable horror with them, I'm still holding my breath.
These sort of marketing campaigns are nothing new in Australia. Over the last 12 months I have seen numerous companies with names VERY similar to the real registrar (INA and INWW are the .com.au administrators and names used are ING, IRA etc).
The ACCC (Consumer Protection) are apparently investigating the actions of these companies - however the damage is done.
From this followup article, it indicates that Bulkregister has already won their preliminary injunction stopping the Verisign marketing campaign.
After using them for several years, I have to say that they have achieved a very special place in my recollection of unpleasant company interactions. Along with only a couple other companies, they are notable as one that I will never ever do business with again and that I regret ever having done business with. Now if they will only let go of my domain names...
...I know who I am registered through, and that's where I'll stay until MY REGISTRAR tells me that I have to go elsewhere. VeriSign can stick their head in a cow patty, for all I care.
Oh wait-- It looks like they have.
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
If you look at verisign.com, of course, you see no evidence that there is anything wrong.
I wonder if there are any stockholders in this company that might be upset over the concealment of information about issues detrimental to the growth of the business?
If they fail to include this issue in their quarterly report, the stockholders should file a class-action suit against the company.
Get off my launchpad!
Doesn't your mother have a telephone?
The result of this was rejected as a Slashdot story but CNN reporting "A U.S. court on Tuesday ordered Internet naming giant VeriSign Inc. to immediately cease a direct-mail campaign that used what a rival called deceptive advertising to poach its customers. "
I doubt anyone will read this but here is my Verisign nightmare. I transferred a domain from netsol to Registrars when verisign bought netsol. Versign kept sending me notices that my domain was expired and they were going to cancel it even though they didn't have the domain and it had been renewed for two years ith registrars. I kept calling and writing them for months telling them they didn't have the domain. Then they bought registrars and had the domain because I couldn't transfer it in time. @#$ Then one day it suddenly stopped working. No email, no website! As far as they were concerned, it had expired! Many calls, faxes and days later, they finally admit that it was paid up for another 1.5 years. Meanwhile, I go to change the DNS because the site and mail are on a new server. The DNS won't update. I call e-mail,... still no change to the DNS. They keep saying they need to try 'one more time' then wait 3 days and it can be escalated. This goes on for weeks of calling, trying the admin control panel calling. It has been a month and a half and I still can't get them to change the DNS server for the domain name. It is still non-functional! All of my automatic bill paying was going to that e-mail address. My automatic financial records and more. They are all being bounced because those !@#$%^&*($#$%^&*&^%$%^ people at verisign can't change a DNS record for a domain name in 6 weeks! Arrrrrrrrrg.