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.

Comments

'bout time.

[j-turkey]

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

I was happy to reply ...

[JamesOfTheDesert]

... when I got the third such letter from VeriSlime.

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.

Solid Case

[phyxeld]

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.

Re:Solid Case

[signe]

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.

Just going to comment on this. While this may have been true in the past, I think that they changed their tune on this item. I just transferred 3 domains away from NetSol to Gandi in the last 45 days of the registration period, and I didn't have any problems. Two of the transfers actually had to be redone in the last 30 days of the registration because of an unrelated problem with the transfer.

The problem was NetSol's extra confirmation step that they have (they send out an email to the administrative contact once their receive the transfer request from your "new" registrar, and give you 96 hours to respond or they reject the transfer). Personally, I wish that step was more standard across the registrars (it prevents slamming like this), but since it's not, I wish NetSol had it documented a little better. My transfers failed the first time around because I neglected to check and respond to that message (my administrative contacts are an email address I don't usually use).

-Todd

Re:I've said it before, and I'll say it again...

[Random Feature]

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.

Re:I dont see the problem...

[Junta]

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.

This is illegal, per 39 USC 3001

[Animats]

Phony invoices are illegal.

• Solicitations in Guise of Bills, Invoices, or Statements of Account (39 USC 3001(D); 39 USC 3005)

  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:

  • THIS IS NOT A BILL. THIS IS A SOLICITATION. YOU ARE UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO PAY THE AMOUNT STATED ABOVE UNLESS YOU ACCEPT THIS OFFER.

  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.

Re:This is illegal, per 39 USC 3001

[Jucius Maximus]

MAIL FRAUD!

If you have received a fake invoice, go and file a complaint!
http://www.usps.com/postalinspectors/fraud/MailFra udComplaint.htm