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Verisign Ordered to Stop Deceptive Renewal Notices
Ummagumma writes: "CNN is running a story on how the courts have ordered Verisign to stop their deceptive 'renewal notices' to other registrars' customers. I've gotten a couple of these, and was smart enough to figure out what's going on, but this is a dirty practice, of borderline legality. Let's hope they get smacked down hard for this one..."
These are neither new nor complicated issues; There are precedents for all of them in the non-Internet realm -- but it's been taking judges and lawyers a long time to realize that.
Got Rhinos?
Today I received a message from Bulkregister about this as it would appear to be because ofthem that Verisign are restricted by this injunction.
:o)
Bulkregister are collecting evidence for the forthcoming trial from Bulkregister members - if you're a member send you details including BR membership number to injunction@bulkregister.com
They may require a fax copy or affidavit but personally I think that it's worth it to show Verisign what we think.
I'm not connected with BulkRegister in any way other than being a satisfied customer of their.
M@t
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
Assuming they are using the U.S. Mail service to solicit this false-renewl, are they not committing Mail Fraud? Or is it only fraud if they do not provide what they are offering and accept your money anyway?
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
I had a domain hosted by a company in india which registered the domain for me for 2 years. After a year, I transferred to a hosting company in the US. When the second year was up, I was thinking that I need to track down who the registrar is and renew, when I got a verisign e-mail saying I need to renew. Thinking that was convenient enough, I renewed with them. About a week after I did this I started to see all the articles on slashdot about domain slamming. I looked through some records and realized that Verisign was not my original registrar and they grifted me good, like Homer and the Cooders. I'd like to say I was beaten by the best, but...
Verisign is, by offering the 9-year plan, making similar mistakes to IBM when they sold instead of leased their mainframe hardware.
So if everybody (who is a Verisign customer), were to go ahead and buy for 9 years, Verisign would actually see a good profit this year, then work that profit direction into future plans' budgets, only to have them fail utterly because nobody would be buying anything from them the next 3-8 years...
Stock prices would drop. Execs would be canned. Heads would roll...
"My God, it would be beautiful..."
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Does anyone know of other registrars who are currently taking similar action?
I'm not a registrar, but I am a reseller through Tucows. My clients also received a bunch of these in the mail. I wonder if I have standing to sue, and I wonder if I can do it in small claims court.
..when they sold the email addresses of all their domain holders to the spammers (and spammers since they are of questionable legality then sold cheap knockoffs of the CDs to other spammers). Since the internic database of actual email addresses that their customers were using to be informed of changes/renewal notices to their domain names with them, it was an especially sleaze thing to do. I am glad that justice was delivered this time.
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Cast a Cold Eye
On Life, on Death
Horseman, pass by
--W.B. Yeats' gravestone
I couldnt agree more. I know at my school (Drexel), business students are not required an ethics course, but engineering students are (req'd for accredidation), as well as other majors (accredidation again).
As a side note, the original judge in the MS anti-trust case has said he feels Microsoft would not be where they are today (a monopoly found guilty of anti-trust) had Bill Gates finished college. He apparently never took an ethics course required by Harvard.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
In general, I'm pretty happy with most of VeriSign's services, even if they are a bit pricey.
What really upsets me is that they're not just using deceptive renewal notices to trick other provider's customers, but they're also sending them out to their current users.
I get e-mail/mail from VeriSign all the time warning me that I need to respond by a certain date or I'll lose my services. Nowhere in the notice does it have the actual date that the account expires. Looking at my own records or checking my account, I find out that the actual required date is weeks or even months after their "important notice" warns me to respond. I've become so accustomed to ignoring their mail, I've almost missed renewing a couple of (non-critical) domains.
What's troubling is that they don't seem to realize just how stupid their strategy is -- it might be the only way an upstart provider could gain customers -- but they *are* the brand name in registrars. They should be so ahead of everyone else and be trying to capitalize on what's left of their legitimacy to build on trust and user loyalty, rather than acting like some fly-by-night spammer operating out of a rented basement apartment.
Asinine stunts like this are destroying the only competitive advantage they really have. They should send someone to take a first year general business course, maybe that will help them get a clue.
My next sig will be ready soon, but friends can beat the rush!
Besides the deceptive fake billing notices from VeriSign and other (American Registry?), VeriSign employs a few other sleezy tactics.
I use OpenSRS for all my registrations, and one of my customers just lost control of his domain name to VeriSign (who also stripped his e-mail, name and company name off of the domain record - and when he called VeriSign they denied any knowledge of them having the domain in their system - even though whois clearly showed it!) Anway, someone in his office paid the "invoice", thus initiating the transfer. The real registrar (OpenSRS) sends out an e-mail to the admin contact notifiying him of the transfer and providing a link and a password to approve the transfer. Unfortunately, ICANN rules state that if you do nothing in 5 days (i.e. specifically deny the transfer), that lack of action in 5 days counts as an acknowledgement to approve the transfer! Bang - bye bye domain name.
Another customer got his renewl notice from VeriSign (a legit one), paid it via credit card, and 4 days AFTER he paid it, VeriSign sold his name to a company in Taiwan. Now VeriSign is telling him there's no way to get the domain back. Argh..
And my final vent on VeriSign. I was watching a domian that expired in March 2000 on their system. I had opened up 3 separate trouble tickets with VeriSign in an attempt to get them to release the domain so I could buy it. Not once did I ever get a response back on one of my trouble tickets. I checked the domain for release almost every day - until one day I see that's it's now owned by a company in Taiwan who is just simply reselling it now for $1500.
I surmise that you have never been to business school. I am currently getting my MBA. We don't learn many Machiavellian techniques. We learn mostly accounting, finance, some law, and some basic computer information. Pretty standard stuff so that you don't drive a company into the ground. We don't talk about how to get ahead by being the most slimy. Should we? By the time you've reached about 30 (the average age at my school), you're either an ethical person or you're not. I doubt a one-semester course is going to change you much. An ethics class in high school, or perhaps a religious upbringing, would likely have a much greater effect.
I agree with your third paragraph, but your first two are mindless ranting.