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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 ;-)
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
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 ?
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
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.
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
Verisign just sucks.
In the past 3 months the amount of SPAM I've gotten has dramatically increased. And almost all of it has Verisign's dirty hands all over it.
I've started getting telemarketing calls at home as well, all related to my PERSONAL domain, and all it is business phone-spam.
I am definitely looking for a new registrar because this is bullshit.
It was bad enough when NetSol took over, but with Verisign in the mix it got worse.
I don't have a solution, but I certainly admire the problem.
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...
Well, sometimes the people receiving the mail may not be the ones last responsible for registering the domain (in a company).
Even if they do know, they may not keep that much track of the company and may think that perhaps Verisign bought up whatever company they registered with.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
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
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.
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.
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.