Slashdot Mirror
Registrar Told To Stop Direct-Mail Scare-Tactics
kiwimate writes "This article says the Domain Registry of Europe has been ordered by the Advertising Standards Authority to cease and desist on a direct mail campaign that was "distressing and intimdating to recipients" and "misleadingly exaggerated the importance and status of its content". The letter suggested that domain names should be renewed at least 30 days before they expired, and gave recipients an easy option of renewing through the DR of E. Having had to deal with this from an almost identically named company in America, the quoted phrases don't seem nearly as sneaky and dirty as some I've seen, but it's good to see a precedent."
So, although I might get these from time to time, I'll probably never see them. Thanks to spamassasin. My current registrar however, goes through spamassasin just fine and reaches my inbox unscathed. How convenient :)
As learned in the AOL CD story a few days ago (so don't blame me if it's inaccurate, /me points at everyone else), anything that comes bulk mail doesn't have any return to sender fees associated with it, so the post office throws it out if you send it return to sender. Meaning that all you do then is increase the load on the postal service, with out inconveniencing the sender at all, and subsequently increasing postal rates.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
In addition to the Versign scams, we have these idiots to deal with.
This of course has nothing to do with the ineptitude of these idiots.
The solution to dealing with these creeps naturally is to do business with a reputable, knowledgeable outfit, and the idiots seem to be kept at bay.
-- Karma whore? You betcha. --
My registrar for just over a year, very nice, very cheap ($8.95/year).. they even parked it for 2 weeks and let me know the credit card on file was bad.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
The ASA is a regulatory body in the UK with legal powers to beat the proverbial out of anyone sending/publishing misleading or unfair adverts such as these. (they don't have authority over TV or Radio ads as there's seperate entities looking after those)
I don't know about other registrars, but GoDaddy allow you to lock your domain to prevent transfers and ownership-details changes. You have to log-in to their web admin stuff and turn the lock off prior to making any account changes. Technically pretty simple, but gives me warm fuzzies all the same.
That's nuthin. I got a fax from a company called the "Internet Support Group" with all kinds of legalese. They essentially fax over a list of alternative TLDs for domain names that I own, trying to scare me into purchasing these alternative TLD versions of my domain name "in order to protect it" from someone registering one of the other versions in the future and exerting a claim against my .com name.
If someone did not know better, they'd jump to fork over their money "just in case". Of course, someone cannot trademark property where a prior ownership of that property has already been established. This is plain scaremongering using IP arguments to close a sale. A totally bogus and reprehensible communique.
http://www.internetsupportgroup.com is the domain name of these scumbags. Oooh- really scary! Take my money, please!