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Sony Forgets To Pay For Domain, Hilarity Ensues
First time accepted submitter Dragoness Eclectic writes Early Tuesday, gamers woke up to find out that they couldn't log in to any Sony Online Entertainment games--no Everquest, no Planetside 2, none of them. Oddly, the forums where company reps might have posted some explanation weren't reachable, either. A bit of journalistic investigation by EQ2Wire came across the explanation: SOE forgot to renew the domain registration on SonyOnline.net, the hidden domain that holds all their nameservers. After 7 weeks of non-payment post-expiration, NetworkSolutions reclaimed the domain, sending all access to Sony's games into an internet black hole. Sony has since paid up. SOE's president, John Smedley, has admitted that the expiration notices were being sent to an "unread email" address.
Companies are designed to maximize profit for those in power. This almost always means that redundancies are eliminated even where they would be sensible from a risk management point of view.
Marginal short term profit trumps long term risk any day.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Dude/tte, I have five domains. All are paid up through 2020. In 2015 I shall extend them until 2030. It's not hard to do and it's not hard to remember, FFS. For a company that large to neglect is inexcusable. Just buy them for then next 20 years, it doesn't cost all that much.
We have ALL forgotten things in our lives
It seems Sony doesn't attach the right amount of importance to domains. Domains should be renewed for 10 years (sony.com has just been renewed, 4 days before expiration, for 2 years), and registrar mails should be directed to a person mailbox. This again shows that Sony neglects its IT infrastructure / (people?) Remember how many times Sony was hacked in recent years...
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...