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Verisign Ordered to Stop Deceptive Renewal Notices

Posted by timothy on from the getting-off-way-too-easy dept.

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..."

6 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Re:deceptive 'renewal notices' by matthew.thompson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  2. See for yourself. by nobodyman · · Score: 5, Informative

    Pardon the whoring, but Go Daddy has posted a copy of the notice that Verisign sent out. It does seem fairly shady.

  3. A way to kill verisign by acroyear · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
  4. I got one of these yesterday by Elkman · · Score: 5, Informative
    I got a "renewal" notice yesterday for two domains I have registered through register.com. I knew it was deceptive, but here's the interesting part: They apparently cross-referenced the name and address on those domains to the name and address of a domain I do have registered through VeriSign, and printed on the address: "Domain Administrator: (name of the organization registered through VeriSign)". However, the domains listed on the form were the ones I have registered through register.com.

    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.

  5. Re:Business Ethics (or lack therof) by jeffy124 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  6. If you got one of these... by D_Nebuchadnezzar · · Score: 5, Informative
    What Verisign did was fraud... Fraud, Fraud, Fraud! They sent out "Domain Name Renewal Notices" -- a bill, and it can be infered that it is expected for you to pay.

    Take 5 minutes, right now, and fill out complaint forms on the following websites:
    1. BBB.org
    2. FTC
    3. 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