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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..."
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.
Yes but PC Magazine doesn't email you to tell you that your Computer Shopper subscription is almost up and that you should renew to "a magazine" through them.
Verisign are attempting to get people not to renew but to transfer - that there is a one year extension to the domain's registry period is purely a function of being an TCANN accredited registry.
They're using a feature of the system to try and get customers back by deception - that stinks.
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
Pardon the whoring, but Go Daddy has posted a copy of the notice that Verisign sent out. It does seem fairly shady.
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
So, in other words, this little "renewal" notice made it appear like it was time for me to renew the domain registered through VeriSign, even though I really would have been transfering two other domains instead.
VeriSign is evil and deserves to die. Apparently, their product can't compete on its own merits any more; they have to resort to deception to sell it.
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.
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.
Take 5 minutes, right now, and fill out complaint forms on the following websites:
- BBB.org
- FTC
- USPS Post Master [usps.com]
Tell these agencies what you received. Send a message to Verisign that we will not put up with this bull crap