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Network Solutions Take 2
sirkin writes "Washington Post Technews is reporting that VeriSign is resurrecting the Network Solutions name with a new subsidiary responsible for domain name registration. It seems so eerily familiar."
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It seems so eerily familiar.
I thought the same thing, Hemos, but it actually isn't a dupe.
Verisign tried to change the name last July, but it took six months for the change to go through.
Among them are the hassle-free domain transfer as well as the "helpful and targeted" informational mailing sent out on the daily basis to thousands of small site operators by their "trusted partners".
Ñ'
...Verisign isn't trying to change the name; someone faxed forms with fake signatures in, and the temps just processed the forms without checking them. Next, Verisign will have to go through a dispute process to get its corporate name back.
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Vote for your hopes, not for your fears - Vote Third Party
Apart from the hokey 'mail from' security scheme they used to use, I find that getting through to them when there is a problem is nearly impossible. The drones on the phone (if you can find the phone number) know so little about DNS that it is physically painful, and they charge extra for what other registrars include in the price of the registration.
In addition to that they are constantly trying to 'slam' my customers into changing registrars and breaking their domain names in the process. They also denied one of my customers' transfers because there was a 'special' on that account. (I later found that a special meant was set to expire in under a month, and they were trying to prevent the change of registrar from going through.)
They are a thoroughly pitiful organization and they deserve all the headaches they have caused me over the years.
Whether you consider yourself a Keynesian, or in the old-clasical camp of economists, I somehow tremble at some industries inability to make a profit.
The registration of domain names seems fairly staid, and yet, common-sense would dictate that little or no profit could really be meagered from such a one-point sale business. Wal-Mart on the other attempts multiple low-cost sales, with a wide variety of products. Though I'm not sure of the ROI for Verisign, I have a feeling, once all said and done, it's less than ten-percent. As a another inidicator, airlines make five to eight percent return on their money (though probably that number is worse as of late).
So the question I pose is thus: if a business or industry barely breaks even, and that industry or business is crucial to the welfare of our nation-state, shouldn't the government monopolize that business for the sake of our well-being? The answer, unfortunately, is NO. Because no matter how badly a business is run in the free-market, the government would only do worse.
So when it comes to privatization of airlines, oil, or domain names (the free flow of information is becoming more central to our security), I applaud a business trying to be more competitive, trying to evolve, trying to find a better way to manage customers, even if they stumble in doing so.
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
Man... I HATE VeriSign. They've recently allowed a large number of my company's domains to be hyjacked TWICE within the last 3 months. (and yes all of our contact info and passwords are secure)
We're now getting started with a criminal investigation (I'll probably send the details into Slashdot in a few weeks). VeriSign is a horrable company. They are insecure, they have a pathetic legal deptartment (only about 3 people), it is nearly impossible reach anyone aside from tech support, etc etc. VeriSign makes MicroSoft look like an angel.
dotster anyone?
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
I manage three different accounts at Network Solutions and I can tell you it's nothing but a pain. I try to mess with it as little as possible because the system almost always craps out on me. If I change a password, the new password doesn't work anymore, and the old one seems to take some time before it kicks in.
On top of that, don't ever let your information in their records become obsolete. If they have a wrong e-mail account for you, you can pretty much give up seeing any use out of that domain until they get around to giving a crap (which is never).
It's been several months since I could get any replies or answers out of them regarding the information on one domain that I own, and it wille expire in April. If I don't have any control of it by then, I'll renew it with someone else that will give me some control over it.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
But in a 2002 survey of Internet address buyers, VeriSign found that 87 percent of them were familiar with the name "Network Solutions" and could identify it as a domain name seller ...
...
Of course, they don't say why their name is recognizable. Long hold-times, bad support, dubious transfer-away procedures
87% of Internet address buyers are also familiar with the phrase "bunch of crappy morons".
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
...a 2002 survey of Internet address buyers, VeriSign found that 87 percent of them were familiar with the name "Network Solutions" and could identify it as a domain name seller, while few recognized the name "VeriSign,"...
A lot of people recognise the name "Osama" too, but that doesn't necessarily come as a positive thing for him when a large portion of those people want him dead.
Verisign should recognise that there is a difference between "famous" and "infamous"... from reading the posting of the slashdot crew here, I think Verisign would be much better off to build a new easy-to-remember untarnished name, rather than resurrecting one dripping with poor opinion and bad history.
I own three domain names, one of them under VeriSign/Network Solutions. Recently I had to make changes to the records for my domain names. It was a hassle.
How long has this company been at domain name handling? While they finally have a completely web based interface for the majority of functions related to domain names, you still have to use the eMail to hostmaster@networksolutions.com to change hosts records -- that is, your domain name's domain name servers. This shows blatant incompetency in regards to automation and their engineering staff.
How hard is it to make a little web form that is attached to a database? It's not.
Password, what password? I had been using the old crypt-password scheme for modifications to my domain names though the old eMail change method. When I went to use their website, I found that my account required a password. What password? It was not my old password, and they never asked me to modify my account. So I had to call up and get a password assigned to my domain name account.
And how long did it take for changed to propagate? For everything other than the hosts records, 24 hours or less. For the hosts modifications, it took over four days, and intervention by engineers because their system apparently was dropping the request for change. That would be four days of downtime for a website. Holy crap.
Trouble ticketing system for issues? They don't really have one as far as I can tell. I had to harass the support phone-droid to give me something to track the issue by, and she gave me some tracking number that they use in their database, but she seemed to indicate that they did not have any kind of trouble ticketing system.
If you are in business, you can't afford to do business with VeriSign/Network Solutions.