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NSI Botches Domain Transfer, Says 'Not Our Problem'
Rolan writes "Wired is carrying a story about a botched domain trasfer that cost a customer "a large wad of money". In the end they say it's not their problem, even though they botched it, and Lawyers say he probably can't do anything about it. " Its an interesting article actually, and it doesn't sound like an isolated incident.
They should have got it right in the first place.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
The original owner should sue them for losing his domain. I can't see at what point they could take a domain from someone as part of a transfer and put it in the open list. If the original owner properly initiated a transfer then NSI should be responsible for not fucking up the transfer. This would be like AT&T taking IBM's 800 number and giving it to a pizza joint.
Have you tried calling ATT? Do you "need" a 56K
line or do you just want one? Shit, I "need" 106
octane gas for my streeet racer. Does that mean
I should blow up a petroleum farm if the gas
company won't sell it to me for $1/gallon?
> The same thing goes with other monopolies such
> as telephone,
Actually, my phone service was better when ATT
_was_ a monopoly, and I didn't have to put up
with unsolicited phone calls "inviting" me to
switch my long distance service.
> electricity, gas, and others. These too need
> to be turned over to non-profit groups.
Yes you're correct. Government should control everything(?)
> You'll never get good service, fair service,
> and decent customer service when profit is
> involved.
I've experienced "free" health care when I was
in the Air Force, and "for profit" health care
since I got out. I'll pay every time. "Free"
health care sucks. Note that doesn't mean I
think monopolies are good, I just don't think
that profit is evil...
> Just recently I called the *ASSHOLES* at
> Sprint/United Telephone about getting a
> 56k line and I was told it would be $236/mo
>+$600 install.
Do you NEED it or WANT it? Have you tried
calling ATT or another competitor to Sprint?
It's more than a simple affiliation. Their pages have greatdomains.com all over it, and even their ads and images have the greatdomains.com logo next to it. They seem to be more like partners.
And yes, I realize that legally Network Solutions is the one to blame (as I mentioned). However, this is a campaign against greatdomains.com/register.com as potential cybersquatters. While it is not directly related to the issue at hand (about races.com), it stems from it.
Your dumb ass probably works at NSI! --j0uSt
And for buying a gun it takes me a maximum of 48 hours (or is it instant?)?
What have our priorities come to !!!!
If I were him, I'd consider my 5000 bucks stolen. I would find out who has my 5000 bucks. Then if they don't pay you back..... Do the bookie method, start putting pressure on them... you know break there knee caps... stuff like that. Heck call the cops and tell them the guy stole 5000 dollars from you in a scam.. Either weay if that happened to me. I guarentee I would get my 5000 bucks back..
The NSI DNS system is, in a word, useless.
I had to change one of the IPs of my DNS server. It took 3 weeks for the change to finally take hold. During that time, sending aproximately 3 change form mails a day, it changed between the first placeholder IP, the original IP, and other IP -- never settling on the proper one. They are totally incompitent.
McLanahan wanted to build a Web business around the races.com domain name, and shelled out thousands of dollars to acquire it.
So first the poor fellow gave money to a domain squatter (really, don't do that). Then he turned around, transfered it, and noticed it was now in possesion of another squatter. How many times will this happen? How many squatters are out there? How many are in cahoots with NSI? (Speculation) Since NSI is losing its monopoly, it seems to have been more tollerant of people buying names for no reason, and keeping them with nothing on them. Can't the courts step in?
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Will someone get their facts right?? Greatdomains.com is a domain auction site, an Ebay specifically for domains. They do NOT own races.com, look it up in whois.register.com (that's a whois server, not a website). Some guy in the UK registered the name.
Don't be a dumbass!!
Oh, really. I have heard better things about register.com than internic. Mainly that they get things done. I have heard about the clueless bit before from a friend of mine who's web site I will soon be hosting. He tells me that everthing wen't smoothly and that changes he makes himself have gone well, but when someone there has to do something they are just as bad as the internic. Does anyone know of somewhere that these places are rated? BTW, I posted before (I am the sole proprietor of Kuroi Tsuki Networks). And since then I decided to get some domain stuff done. I was greeted with yet another completely different way of changing information. That would be the third time in the last month the internic has changed somthing in their modification process, luckily for the better. Perhaps now that they have competition they are really starting to wise up. I still hate their guts though! And they still suck to hell!
This time NSI was able to blow it off because the unfortunate victim was a "little guy." Wait 'till something like this happens to someone with deep pockets and on-staff legal counsel.
I guess you have a point, again. I withdraw my point :P $70 ain't bad, but squatters still don't mind paying that, hoping to gain larger amounts in the long run.
-FweE-
How long ago did this happen? As far as I know, the proper way to "transfer" a domain is to use a Registrant Name Change Agreement. I'm quite surprised that they would have told you to send a delete and an add. They've had the Registrant Name Change agreement for at least a year and a half.
If things are as bad as comments here on slashdot indicate, perhaps a petition for a proper review sent to the top of the regulatory pyramid and/or congressperson(s) on relevant committes would result in a better implementation.
OTTOMH, I offer the following ideas to protect registration clients without threatening the cashflow of legitimate businesses:
I suppose if there was a worry about a time stamping server pulling something funny (like being a cybersquat front), you could send an encrypted version (openable by yourself and perhaps some impartial legal entity) for timestamping first to several time stampers, then the clear text version. Assuming that would create legal evidence. IANAL.
Quite hard. In fact, you have to devise a system that is reasonably fair, reasonably open and reasonably well-organized to have a chance of getting a significant following.
So far, the best attempt has been ICANN; other attempts were CORE, EDNS and others. And if ICANN is the best we've been able to do, what does that tell you....?
NOT trivial.
Same here. It once took 3 months and 11 days for them to straighten out a mis-typed number in my domain's administrative contact information. Bastards.
Damn this is out of hand! If this guy paid, he should get the service! It's NSI's problem not anyone elses that they screwed up. What the hell is this world coming to..
What you say is certainly true. I should have said 'tied up for our field of use' instead. For this particular domain name (not mentioned here to protect the guilty), it's highly unlikely that anyone would want it except for our field of use. And even if someone wanted this domain name to sell faucets or airline tickets, I wouldn't care.
If they want the domain name, and are going in our field of use, then they'll be in for a fight. We can afford lawyers too.
But I'm not worried either way. The guy who has it now isn't going to use it himself, so he's got to try to find some other sucker to buy it. He'll probably just give it up after a while. And then we'll pick it up cheap. Patience is a virtue,
I stood up a new DNS server to serve a few older domains I own. However, when I tried to register the host with NSI as a DNS server (required for domains registered under Internic), I was told that I could not because the top level domain had not been registered with them.
This is complete bullshit. The new dns server name resolves and it points to a valid IP address for a machine offering DNS services. Where is the requirement for the domain to have been registered with NSI. It is my choice who I give my money to to register the domain and it shouldn't prevent me from offering a vital network service.
Also, if you have a domain originally registered under Internic you are not allowed to use the NSI 24/7 support line. You have to call a special Internic tech support line that is only open during normal business hours. Why?!!?! I still have to pay NSI $35 a year...how does that make me different and worth less support. I have found however, that the level of incompetence is consitent in both support centers.
Has anyone else had problems registering a DNS host with NSI where it was denied because you didn't register the host's top level domain with them. DNS is what makes the Internet work and right now NSI is deliberately breaking it.
Matt
IANAL, but my understanding is that there is a very old rule in common law known as the parol evidence rule (parol being an old word for oral) which states that if there is any written evidence of the nature of a contract or agreement, that takes almost complete precedence over almost any oral evidence. If you sign a contract, it might not matter what someone said to you at the time, unless you can carfully document it with witnesses and show intent to mislead or defraud.
... I just checked. (now isn't that a shock)
By your reasoning a house isn't property then.
It took about as much negotiation and time (3 months) to sell Business.com to eCompanies as a typical house might.
What do you whining anti-"squatter" communists want? If you bash it, don't use it.
After some digging (CmdrTaco...I beg for
whois register.com@register.com
....
Registrant:
Register.com, Inc.
575 8th Avenue
11th Floor
New York, NY 10018
US
And greatdomains.com:
whois greatdomains.com@whois.networksolutions.com
...
GreatDomains.com Inc (GREATDOMAINS6-DOM)
10 Universal City Plaza, Suite 1115
Universal City, CA 91608
US
Give me free-market capitalism over inept communism anyday!
Fuck, a quarter stuck to a stick with a piece of gum placed on top of one of those huge ass supra modems could do better (anybody ever use those supra modems that were about as long as your forarm and had a bps rate of about 0). But to make it fair for the NSI servers, you'd have to remove most of the components from the modem and pour 2 cans of Orange Slice soda on it.
Also, with microsoft you know that you can at least do things with your product without needing someone else to do it for you. With NSI you need to wait for an NSI idiot fuck head to do it for you. With microsoft, you have good alternatives (Linux, for example). With NSI every single alternative sucks total ass just as much as NSI. In my opinion microsoft is at least 20x better than NSI. To further explain why, it took me 10 minutes to change a lot of information on a customers computer yesterday, and it took NSI 5 months to change one word on my domain registration. You do the math.
Actually many people do type them in. People who have never used the internet are much more likely to type in a url they see on the side of a bus, than to go to yahoo to search for it.
1 Microsoft Way, to use your analogy is much easier to remember and to type in than 3 Microsoft Way.
Besides, everything else aside, he PAID for 1 Microsoft Way and now he's got NOTHING. Start-up companies cannot afford to purchase essential things and then not recieve them or a refund.
Doug
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
A sad story. This a yet another nugget of evidence on why the current registration system is so totally screwed.
NSI did not lock the domain name as they should have... not once but TWICE. Big mistake on thier part but they are not to blame entirely. Register.com sold the name (apparantly) to GreatDomains.com who (again apparantly) sold the name to a gentleman in the UK. No mistake here, to Register.com the domain was available. (Their mistake is in not helping to retrieve the name after finding out it wasn't REALLY available).
Now we have this gentleman in the UK who has the name and is willing to "give it up" for $500,000. Here is where to place your blame (IMHO). If, and I don't recall seeing it mentioned, this man was made aware of the mistake, he should have offered to rescind his deal with GreatDomains.com, who should rescind their deal with Register.com who should return the domain name to NSI who should LOCK the damn thing and complete the transfer.
But NO this guy, who probably paid much more than $70 but much less than $500,000 for the domain is looking to make a profit at someone elses expense. He is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! and he is who the "polite" emails should be sent to (again, JMHO).
---"Without education there is only ignorance"
I'm sick of these pimps overcharging us just because all the good ones are already taken.
I would sure be a shame if someone were to break into "www.greatdomains.com" an almightly Windows NT box and xfer all the domains that loser has bought to someone else. I'M SO SICK OF THESE DAMN CYBERSQUATERS!
There was some commentary floating around a while back that there might be criminal fraud charges laid against NSOL, because their S-1 neglected to mention that _they wouldn't have a monopoly much longer_. Does any one know what happened there?
I'd _love_ to see them get fried to a crisp. I'm tired of engineering jobs being treated as marketing.
Cheers,
This is especially ironic to me, living in Canada: the only G7 nation with 3rd World policies on economics and future prosperity: "Here, take our lumber, we don't want all the jobs and money that come with processing it ourselves!"
--
Change is inevitable.
Progress is not.
I mean it. What kind of freaking company is this? Why are they even still in business? Hopefully the negative publicity from this will make waves. If not, incidents like this will continue to happen due to their arrogance. Someone needs to take them down a few notches. It's happening to Microsoft, why not Network Solutions?
If I had lost 4 grand I would be gunning for someone about now.
>"This is a really unfortunate thing that happened," admits Network Solutions spokeswoman Cheryl Regan. "But [McLanahan] is not a customer of ours. He was about to become one, but he didn't."
A real winning business attitude! Hope other potential customers take the hint, and register with someone else.
"The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity." --Harlan Ellison
If all these people could be convinced to switch over to a better system (and not a trashy opportunistic one like AlterNIC but a responsible one run by the Net for the Net), things would be a lot better.
OpenDNS?
-Lx?
is to bomb NSI with emails over this politely asking not to be such a jerk and get it back to him. I only later realized that it was registered by a competing registration company. Surely you can't say that NSI isn't responsible. This is an open and shut case.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
You have no moral right to do this. Black-holing is acceptable against spammers who use other people's resources, but not as a form of censorship of folks you happen to disapprove of.
I hope you clear it with your company's lawyers and management... could be illegal restraint of trade.
Hmm, but you'd also need to hire nothing but idiots and enforce a manditory "screw the customer untill their ass hole bleeds" policy. Then you'd also have to loose thousands of records every so often and not do anything about it. Plus you'd need servers with really bad software that only process one in every million requests for service. And then you'd have to make it so only in in every million requests that do get processed gets processed correctly. Next you need to open up big gaping security holes in your system so anybody can steal and change your customers information. Next, when you get competition, you can't let them have access to your database untill months after the government told you to make it available. Oh yeah, and one more thing. Then you need to blame every mistake made on somebody else.
What I really don't understand is how NSI managed to turn something which theoretically should be fairly simple (access the domain name, change the ownership/nameserver information) into such a disaster - and the fact that they managed to make the mistake not once, but twice!
While I think it's unfortunate that this happened, and unfortunate that there's no way NSI can be held responsible, I also don't see what would be so bad about simply taking a different domain name - sure, "races.com" would have been nice, but there are plenty of other names out there that would work just as well.
Fuck, the domain only costs $70 if I remember correctly. That just makes piles of sense.
But what would be considered a squatter?
cybersquatter, n., one who registers domain names for the sole purpose of reselling, leasing, or renting them for a profit, usually pricing it out of the reach of a potential customer. As a result, these domains never sell but instead sit in a domain registry for two years while the squatter goes out of business.
-Lx?
this is only evidence of things to come.
Im quite sure situations like this will be common,
and people will begin taking the law into thier own
hands
hmmm, So 4k isn't chump change for most people (ESPICIALLY college students). A similar instance (not the situation but paying and not receiving) I walk into Macdonalds. Pay $5 for a Big Mac meal. Oops sorry we gave it to someone else. [then with what you are suggesting...] "Oh your stupidty is A-Ok with me. Here, here is $5 more dollars for a plain cheese-burger." You want him to just ignore what happened, then willingly pay more money (without ANY re-embersment) for a name LESS suitable than the first. Whos to blame: The guy? maybe, for going to NSI The races.com seller? Nope, he signed the dotted line. Register.com? Nope ,they saw its open for all The New buyer? Nope, as we all know, you see a steal, you take it. NSI? Yep,
Beau C
I have to agree with you there - the lawsuit situ would be as follows --
Buyer sues Seller for non-receipt of goods paid for (I believe he does have the right to do this, as the Seller "owned" the domain (which was in NSI's hands), and sold it to the Buyer, whom, due to NSI's incompetence, never received it)
Seller in turn sues NSI for court costs and damages from the Buyer suit (as the Seller gave notice to NSI to do these things, and NSI screwed it up, thus harming the Seller's reputation, as well as opening him to the lawsuit from the Buyer)
NSI can (and should) fight to get the domain back -- they obviously have proof that the domain was "in transit" and not "available" -- and as such, they should (conceivably) be able to sue the other domain registrar for the domain. Of course, the registrant could sue the other registrar, who could in turn sue NSI...
In any case, it would seem to me (and I don't claim to be educated in the way these laws actually work, this is just common sense, which I realize our legal system has very little of) that NSI should take the fall for this one.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that.
I miss Meept.
I hate, loathe and despise the scumbags at NSI and would bore you with my own horror story if it was anything new.
.uk domain is run by Nominet (www.nic.uk) and their processes have so far been excellent. You pay an up-front fee to become a member - I don't remember the amount, it's a few hundred USD, then you can do everything with PGP-signed emails and registration of a new domain currently runs at UK pounds 5 or about USD $8. They are a not-for-profit organisation and even by telephone are very helpful. Domain registration turns around in about 15 seconds in my experience.
However - a breath of fresh air for once. The
I suggest that the US people lobby to have NSI thrown out and control passed to Nominet. They have done an excellent job.
I have no association with them other than using them for domain registration myself.
In Canada, domain name speculation is avoided
since every legal entity can have only 1 domain
name. And it has to be related to a registered
trademark/corporate name.
So, I had to register Pollock Inc (JJA) in
order to get pollock.ca. Coke can have Coke.ca
or CocaCola.ca, but not both. Seems to work
well so far.
Maybe NSI or one of it's employess lost that domain on purpose for some cash under the table. Seems fairly possible to me.
My solution: first come, first serve, end of story.
OK. Lemme know when it goes live. I'll be the first to pipe Roget's Thesaurus, The Oxford English Dictionary, and the Encyclopedia Brittanica through it.
-Lx?
I would be very careful to read the fine print before I tried transferring a domain to a different registrar. The disclaimer on Register.com states that they are not responsible if you lose the domain in the transfer process!!
One poster mentioned that when buying a domain, you should make sure the transfer payment is void unless you actually receive ownership. Given the current state of affairs I agree entirely. Since the registration services do not assume any sort of responsibility, I would want some assurances that I am not going to be left with an empty wallet and no name.
Another thing that I would do if I lost a name in this fashion would be to go to ICANN, and their regulators as well. ICANN is supposed to have a dispute resolution process too. This would sure be a good test of this process.
nt
I've had no end of nightmares with them recently. In one case, they bounced back a request to change technical contact & DNS servers with an error that showed the email was getting piped to a process that was crapping out. So we resubmitted, only to find out that they sent us back some random technical information with our domain and authorization the top, meaning that for 24 hours, the domain got pointed to the wrong place entirely.
The updates to the whois database have dropped to an average 1.1 per day, but they keep claiming it's changed twice daily. Someone I spoke to there had no idea that this was happening.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
That dose sound fishy...
I've transfered my domain once and to spite some glitches [some on my end] the transfer went pritty smoothly.
Delete and reclame is the WRONG process and it sounds like someone set him up or just didn't know his job.
I don't actually exist.
Go to greatdomains.com, and type in stuff like
/. does it, do you think they can humanly process them all? some will slip through and be registered.
wesuck.com
If everyone from
>you can't have read the article and still think there is anything else NSI
>could do now about it.
They could give him his money back.
Nick
You have to have the DNS servers for your domain set, then you need to set MX records up.
You seem to have forgotten that he paid "several thousand dollars" for the domain, which NSI lost in a pretty monumental screw-up.
He's paid a lot of money for something he now can't have, and the people responsible are basically saying "that's life".
I don't think the problem is that it's killed his business plan, as much as he's effectively been ripped off and there's nothing he can do about it.
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I don't understand that at all. This is just some bits. Data. It have not even a remote clue why they couldnt give the guy the domain back ? Hey, all it takes is a fschking databse entry.
If you do a paper transaction, and that is invalid, someone corrects it. Where's the deal ?
Errors happen wherever people work. I don't understand why Network Solutions has no error handling procedure, and why everybody seems to think they don't need one. And why everybody here thinks they shouldn't correct what is a simple error.
Stupid Americans...
Read the post before you reply to it dumbfuck. I wrote very explicitly that there is money to made in owning a generic domain name, but it isn't much of bussiness plan in the long run.
Sure, the first time you are looking for movie info you might go to movies.com and give them a hit. But soon you'll hear about imdb.com, and then you will never hit movies.com again. That's one hit for movies.com for having an obvious domain, a hundred for IMDB for having an excellent service. You might try music.com or bands.com the first time you want music information, but its ubl.com that you will find yourself coming back to.
Sure there is money in a domain name that people will be using by default, just like there are companies called AAAAAAAAAAA inc just so they can be first in the phonebook. In the long run however, you are much better off with a better product than a good name.
And as far as "built in advertising" is concerned, you are paying for the domain just like you would pay for any other form of advertising. The difference is that second hand domain names are overhyped and overpriced...
-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
As to legality... I love people who think the law is The Law. simple solution here - base it outside the US, and have participants sign an NDA ala the RBL.
That'll work at first, but eventually the bigger, more powerful corps that you're p-ing off with this would manage to force through some sort of deal whereby it efectively became illegal in your host country. Sure, you could move, if you were fast enough, but they'd just pull the same trick with your next host.
Eventually, they'd either
a) manage to nail you (unlikely, I guess)
b) chase you around so much it drained your bank account
c) chase you somewhere that refused to play ball (again unlikely, if they were willing to put up enough money)
Could be fun, though - particularly if you set up a few data havens as well; that could more than fund the whole thing...
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
If you understood the nature of the start-up process, you'd know that an easy-to-remember domain would save you MILLIONS in branding costs.
And as for search-engines detracting from the value of good domains, HAH! All you have to do to expose this fallacy is try to place a website on a search engine yourself. Have fun getting lost in the crowd.
It's NOT JUST A NAME. It's BUILT IN ADVERTISING. Duh. And if you can't figure out by now why someone would pay top dollar for a domain, forget it, it's over your head.
1. Chalk up the US$4K to "learning experience"... I've spent more than that failing out of classes.
2. Register races.to it's a little catchier, ain't it? You can register it through register.com. It seems "racesnow.com" is taken now. Registered on December 11... looks like he's out of luck again.
It's easier to look for a solution when you ain't crying or screaming "foul." Although I feel bad for this guy, playing victim and doing nothing about it isn't going to get anyone ahead.
Time to move on now... learn and grow.
-m
I think the answer to most of these issues is very simple: one domain name per primary/secondary nameserver combination. Of course, primary/secondary combination A/B is equivalent to B/A. A registration request where the primary/secondary nameserver combination is the same as that of some other domain gets rejected. So does a request to change the primary/secondary nameserver combination of an existing domain to one that is the same as another registered domain.
Now, some of you will undoubtedly say that this will be unacceptable to lots of companies. Well, tough. The mission isn't to solve all the world's problems: it's to provide a "safe haven" for people who legitimately want domain names without the hassle of squatters and the other nonsense that goes on with the current system. A top level domain mechanism for the mere mortals among us. But note that the implication of this mechanism is that the more publicly-visible nameservers a company has under its control, the more domains it can register. This is as it should be: larger companies are more likely to have acquired smaller companies and it's reasonable for them to want to keep the domain names associated with those acquisitions. It also means that becoming a squatter means acquiring a lot of IP address space, which is a reasonably expensive thing to do these days.
Personally, I think there should be no more than one TLD (.com,
This would simplify things a lot. If I don't like the way NSI manages
This obviously doesn't address the issue of trademarks. I think the answer is simple: if the company managing the TLD is in a country where this is an issue, they'll obviously have to heed the trademark laws. But if I were running the company, it would take a court order to get me to take away someone's domain.
--
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Here is from the google website :
:)
http://www.google.com/company.html
and for the lazy ones
Google is a play on the word googol, which was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, to refer to the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google's use of the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web and in the world.
so they names might actually matter to the owner
MLT - simple and robust open source multimedia framework for Linux
NSI went wrong on this, but what me worries more is this... When there was only NSI, they screwed up and could fix it, and US$70 wasn't that huge... But in the case of register.com, it seems that they and greatdomains.com have some sort of agreement where one buys domain names from the other, and exchanges the profit with the original seller... Your choice: US$70 to NSI or US$500.000 to register.com/greatdomains.com... In Belgium (where i live) only registered companies and groups are allowed to take a .be domain name. So, for instance, if you would like to have races.be or chat.be, you should first start a company called races inc. or chat corporation before you can actually register them... It's strongly regulated, but prevents cyber-squatting... And what about new extentions? .shop, .store, .sex seem a solution... my 0.78BEF...
Most of my domain transfers are handled within 10 minutes. But what really, really burns me is updating host records. I've been waiting over 2 weeks for my host records to update; in 4 weeks the old IP address will no longer function!
We *need* free and fair competition. NSI knows that if true competition entered the market, they would be out of luck, due to gross incompetence, overpricing, and a complete lack of net.clue.
- dpk
Many of the people reading this message, will be people who have much more "power" (if such a thing exists) on the internet. ITS TIME WE MADE A CHANGE. NSI ARE HERE to do what we tell them. Period. Lets take some action. EMAIL EMAIL EMAIL Lets email the shit out of them telling them how annoyed we are over what this poor guy has gone through. - I register hundreds of domains with them a month - they treat me like shit. Lets start a website ( email zeev@meridianuk.net for any1 who is interested )that will show how upset we are with people like NSI. LETS BOMBARD THEM WITH EMAIL, AND MORE EMAIL, AND MORE EMAIL. Lets make a change.
if this is true, then NSI's statement that he was not a customer (and therefor they could do nothing for him) is untrue. Since this chum seems to be into the domain speculation game, I don't feel at all sorry for him, but I really hate that NSI can be so arrogant in these situations.
http://public-image.com/ ~
There's a difference between intentionally squatting on a domain name and taking a long time to develop a site because you're a student. A company with many employees working full time might develop the site faster, but the student isn't intending to make money off of it.
Since a large proportion of the domain name speculation and disputes is focussed on the shortcut ".com", ".net", ".org" etc. names, maybe its time to bring the US back in line with the rest of the world - enforce the ".us" country suffix.
Since a large proportion of the domain name speculation and disputes is focussed on the shortcut ".com", ".net", ".org" etc. names, maybe its time to bring the US back in line with the rest of the world - make the ".us" country suffix mandatory. People seem to forget that ".com" really is ".com.us" (if NSI has been selling these separately, they are in deep, deep poo.) Remove the false perception that ".com" is better than ".com.us" or ".com.au" or ".co.uk" (yuck ;) and the speculators suddenly don't have a market. Yes, it means an extra three characters on the URL, but who cares when you are following a hyperlink or clicking on a bookmark?
Just a thought on your "only one registry per Pri-Sec combination" With 2 DNS servers I can create one said combination With 3 DNS servers I can create 6 said combinations With 4 DNS servers I can create 12 said combination With N DNS servers I can create N(N-1) said combination. So, to register 400 domains, I would only need 21 DNS servers. 50 DNS server will give me 2450 domains. A CLASS C of DNS servers will give me appx 63756 domains. Fancy that. You need a little more limits in place than a simple DNS combination. A better limit would be that a DNS server can only be listed once in a TLD. Or, even better (but harder to implement), a DNS network can only be listed once. Of course, that would screw the services that many ISP's and registries bank on (serving DNS for their customers) But, o well *shrug* ShanMan
Actually, Greatdomains.com does not own the domain, nor did they register it. Greatdomains.com is a Real Estate company. For years they have provided real estate services for physical property (i.e. houses) and some time ago they branched out into "virtual" property (i.e. domain names).
Greatdomains.com is just the real estate agent here. NSI is the one at fault for letting go of the domain in the first place.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
You just reminded me why I put up with the "first posts" and semiliterate anonymous cowards and comments about as non-informative as the one I'm writing right now.
Well written, well thought out, thoroughly investigated comments like yours are what make Slashdot stand out from the usual news sites.
Marko Karppinen
Maybe we need root registries in Cuba -- somewhere where big international corps. don't have much influence.
.com, .net etc. altogether so there won't be any direct conflicts (I always thought it would be cool to have the domain slashdot.slash [pronounced slash-dot-dot-slash])
Seriously though, I've thought about stuff like this before -- I think that we should set up some new TLDs with our own root servers -- leave
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
The contact change went through two days ago, but the whois still hasn't been updated.
With joker.com, my whois record was updated in 10 minutes (literally) and the server was up under the new DNS in less than 24 hours. If you take a look at yi.org, you'll find out that NSI requires all changes to be approved by a person. What crack are they on?
There's a link in the wired article to "The Sordid Saga of Sex.com," in which the original registrant of sex.com claims that NSI transferred ownership of "sex.com" to a rather shady character, after recieving a forged letter approving the transfer. The article is here. Apparently the new owner is something of a crook. Sex.com supposedly pulls in $100 million annually...
The thing that makes people so upset is that they feel he's being shit on as a "little guy". If the business.com domain, which eCompanies or whatever paid $7.5 million for, went through this same ordeal you can bet your ass NSI would have found a way to fix it, or would be in the process now of hiring lawyers for a suit that would decimate them. Its all about the benjamins!
I do not understand how Register.com can claim that they have entered into a binding, enforceable agreement except that GreatDomains and Register.com are related companies. NSI screwed up, but Register.com seems to have violated property law -- they were notified of the mistake within a short amount of time and could have reversed the transaction. Both should act to rectify the situation. Can ICANN be of any assistance?
No, you need to get the facts right before you post as if you know what's going on.
Greatdomains.com is basically a home to cybersquatters. It is a place where people can go and sign up with their site, and then list their domain name and description for why it is so good on a listings page. They then can put their price range or write MAKE OFFER. Prices usually are in the tens of thousands of dollars range, with some in the hundreds of thousands. About 75% of those sites (and go ahead and visit them if you don't believe me) are owned by cybersquatters looking to make a nice little profit...simply go to the majority of those pages and you won't see any remnants of a real site that used to be at the location, but rather a simple "for sale" page that greatdomains.com provides.
As if it wasn't bad enough that greatdomains.com promotes the idea of cybersquatting as a type of business forum (where users can go and try to resell their domains for tons of profit, rather than doing the respectable thing - simply not using it and letting InterNIC offer it to someone else for the *NORMAL* price of $70/2 yrs), greatdomains.com apparently also takes part in cybersquatting themselves. Your claim that "They do NOT own races.com...some guy in the UK registered the name" is completely wrong, because you failed to do sufficient research before attempting to prove what we said as incorrect. According to whois, a company called Sportworld, Ltd. registered the domain. And, according to the Wired article (maybe you actually should have read it more carefully before posting), Sportworld Ltd. is a "domain speculation company" which runs greatdomains.com. Now, admittedly, this seems odd to me - why would a company called Sportworld run greatdomains.com? Why would it be located in the UK and greatdomains.com says their in California? Perhaps Sportworld ltd. is just a made up name to pretend as if a sporting company had originally used races.com for its own purposes. However, I will assume that Wired has done sufficient amount of research to make the claim that Sportworld, Ltd. is the parent company of GreatDomains.com. The fact that races.com is hosted on servers provided by GreatDomains.com, and that if you go to the page it says it was registered on greatdomains.com, supports this claim.
And if there was any doubt that races.com was registered by a cybersquatter, let it be eliminated. For, just look at what it's registered under with whois: "Sportworld ltd dom for sale" They even put an for sale advertisement in their whois registration! And the domain has been registered for about a week and yet it's already up for $500,000 auction on greatdomains.com? Please.
The fact of the matter is that there's apparently a little partnership between register.com and greatdomains.com, one that is unjust and perhaps illegal, and at the very least, one that we the slashdot community should not accept. Someone (I forget who, sorry) brought up this idea before - obviously, register.com notifies greatdomains.com whenever a previously used domain that has potential for profit becomes available, at which point greatdomains.com is able to jump the gun by registering it right when it becomes available. In fact, register.com might even make it first available to greatdomains.com BEFORE the general public can register the domain for the normal price. In fact, they probably have people 'round the clock checking newly available domain names and either buying it for $70 just to turn around and sell it for $500,000, or rejecting if (if it's not a good one) so the general public can again buy it. This, to say the least, is absolutely disgusting, and by us sitting here and doing nothing, we give our sign of approval and acceptance.
We are their business, and their ultimate source of profit. If we stop coming, they'll listen.
McC writes:
"if flmes _are_ a problem, well, they deserve it anyway. NSI has cost this person, and many people like him, a lot of money and inconvenience; they can deal with the slight karmic retribution of having their mail server crash."
Heck, yeah, I couldn't agree more -- in principle.
Only, if they are as incompetent as they seem to be, that mail server is probably also the database server for the registration database itself, so crashing it will cause the exact same kind of problem for even *more* innocent victims!
So IMO y'all should really make that a set of REAL, not metaphorical, pitchforks and torches...
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Christian R. Conrad
mail me at iki.fi ; same user ID as here
Correct, register.com and greatdomains.com are two separate companies. Also, note that neither of those companies are the registrant of races.com: Organization: Sportworld ltd dom for sale 57 chesham st leamimgton spa, warwickshire, cv311js UK
It's not fishy at all. It might be awkward and trouble-prone, but it is the fastest way to get both a transfer and an organization change done. Typically, NSI will not change the organization name attached to a domain name. I tried for about 4 years to get it changed on my main domain name. Finally, after talking to a VP of NSI, I found-out the above trick. I deleted my domain name, then I reregistered it about a week later with the new org name. It worked. NSI loves the above method, because they immediately get to charge another $70 registration fee.
www.opensrs.org. Only $13US a year.
I doubt that anyone *has* bid $500000. The current bid says $500000 but I'm guessing that's the suggested starting bid. I wonder what would happen if greatdomains was flooded with $1 bids for races.com. 7:^)
I think that NSI is both sloppy and in cahoots with people, arranging special favors as they see fit. I contacted the legitimate owner of the mls.net domain and asked if I could use it, as he was not. "Sure!" was his reply, and he and I worked together to transfer the domain from him to me. NSI said we could not "transfer" the domain, and suggested sending both a delete and add for that domain in the same message, which would result in a transfer. So we did that. Somehow, in the middle, a crank named William Hicken (rhymes with the barnyard animal) acquired the domain instead. I called NSI, quite mad, and asked how their procedure, with DELETE and ADD in the same message, resulted in both the original owner of the domain and I losing it to a third party. They said "Well, it sucks to be you. Try calling Mr. Hicken," refusing to accept any responsibility for the fuckup, even after I produced the "paper trail" of email between me, the original owner, and NSI planning the transfer. Their reply was that they're officially infallible, like the pope.
So I called Mr. Hicken, who said he aquired the domain name legitimately, using standard NSI procedures, and almost immediately treatened to sue me if I tried to get the domain name back. As the company I worked for at the time had neither the time or money to waste pursiung Hicken in court, we let it drop.
All I can figure is that he has, or had, friends at NSI. I don't know any other way he noticed the few-minutes (seconds?) gap between the delete and add for that domain. It certainly would not have shown up in WHOIS (updated every 24 hours!), so he shouldn't have even known that the domain was on the move. It was an inside job!
NSI is just a poorly run company which found a way to latch onto the public teat. They would have been chewed up and spit out by the market without special government protection and status; what talent do they have? All they do is mismanage a system invented and set up by the NSF and Jon Postel, et al, way back when. And, unfortunately, ICANN is a joke and hasn't humbled NSI or improved the situation in the least.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
"Will someone get their facts right?? " AGREED!
/. users had brains. Most of the messages here prove otherwise...
I always thought
He hasn't given NSI any money yet, as such, so they have no money to give back to him. Should they reimburse him for what he paid the original owner of the domain? I'd think so, yeah. Are they gonna? Since they're not legally obligated by contract, then I betcha they won't. The Bottom Line here - for the poor guy who's out some serious cash - is that any agreement that says anything about lack of liability, non-warranty, no service guaranteed, etc., is not an agreement on which you want any real assets riding.
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
This is John McLanahan. Thank you all for your posts and comments! I can use your help. If anyone has high level contacts at the Department of Commerce or at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, please let me know. Also, if you know of any other individuals that I can contact who have "lost" domain names due to errors by Network Solutions, please forward their contact information to me. I want to make sure that Network Solutions doesn't do this to other individuals in the future. Thank you for your help. John McLanahan JJJMCL@hotmail.COM
I think that if he was basing the entire bussiness on the url then he had the wrong attitude to begin with.
I think you're missing the main point of the article. The point is that a person with intent on creating a web site that "HAPPENED" to use races.com , not the other way around. I'm sure that for right now, he is probably discouraged from continuing with this project because of his problems with NSI.
Also, while it is my sincere belief that the readers of slashdot are more intelligent in technical matters, the majority of the population is filled with morons. And if I can exponentially increase my business by using a generic name such as "races.com" simply because some joe schmoe aol user type races.com then guess what? I'm gonna use it, it's simply good marketing. While I don't agree with this tactic ethically, from a business standpoint, it's highly effective.
gratzi,
aaron
"...we dont care about the economics; we just want to be able to hack great stuff."
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
But it's not like land at all. It's just an address. He wanted 1 Microsoft Way and has to settle for 3 Microsoft Way. BFD. Nobody types in URLs anyway. They'll type "races" into a search engine and click on the links.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
When he originally put in the forms for the transfer of the domain, NSI told him there would be a 5 day wait. A 5 DAY WAIT? For what? In my job I've registered literally hundreds of domain names, and transferred several dozen and I've never seen any notice about a 5 day wait. As anyone else ever had this happen to them?
And one things for sure: if this guy had been a big corporation, NSI would have found a way to get that domain back.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
It wouldn't be a problem if NSI hadn't screwed everything up in the first place by not differentiating com, net, and org properly.
There's also the possibility of using the new Domain Name Dispute Procedure, which works through the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva. That costs only $1000 to use, and might be worth a try.
Sure that's too bad and all, losing money through a botched process. NSI screwed up, BUT McLanahan knew the consequences. He's an MBA major. If he wants to succeed in business, he'd better toughen up. If the loss of a domain name is enough to crush a business plan, it couldn't have been much of a plan, imho.
Graham
Graham
Linux - Fast Pane Relief
Doesn't really help. All that would happen then is that transfers would be replaced by a 2-step process: 1. squatter releases domain 2. buyer registers domain.
The buyers will still deal with the squatters because they've still got the domain names. The only difference is that the buyer has an even higher risk of losing the domain before he can register it.
What *might* work, though, is some sort of DNS blacklist, e.g. DNS servers don't recognize the registrations of known squatters. Be a bit tricky to implement since NSI *does* recognize the registrations.
If there were similar procedures in place for .com/.net/.org, there would be time to correct mistakes like the one in this case before someone else got the name. ICANN and/or the registries should take action to implement such a policy.
Remember that the only thing holding NSI in place is the fact that their root DNS system is the one chosen by the majority of the nameserver administrators on the planet. If all these people could be convinced to switch over to a better system (and not a trashy opportunistic one like AlterNIC but a responsible one run by the Net for the Net), things would be a lot better.
Hmm. Nope. I don't think I can say EULA.
Shawn Poulsen (Fruan)
"On Slashdot, many obvious things are insightful." - Annonymous Coward, 2000/7/9
What kind of e-commerce company does not lock a record while a transfer is being made? If banks made this same mistake they'd be apologizing left and right. NSI is completely to blame on this issue. Their system architecture is seriously flawed.
Looks like the student involved learned the most importent lesson at the end. "If I have to register another domain, I'll be sure to use a competing registrar."
:)
Lesson learned. Never use NSI, that company has to be one of the biggest cluster fscks on the Net. With as much money as they pull in per domain, you would think they could afford to mount an operation a little more efficient than your average fly by night company.
Nearly everyone who has dealt with them probably has some horror stories about lost submissions, unreturned phone calls, unanswered e-mail, and a "sucks to be you" customer service policy.
If you are using them and you are banking on fast turnaround, or even competent service, well, sucks to be you
I hope some of the other new registrars can pick up the slack on this and provide some good service.
Finkployd
Anyone remember the original domain registration policies?
.com you had to be a commercial entity. .net, you had to be a network provider, part of the overall Internet infrastructure. .org, you had to be a non-profit organization (not in the strictest sense, but generally true)
.com, .net, and .org to protect their name. They encouraged people to register domains all the time, as many as possible.
Let me recap, and paraphrase.
1 - domains were free. There was no registration fee. NSI was appointed to perform the administrative tasks of running the registry. Note this didn't mean 'owning' the DNS or anything, just someone to do the work.
2 - to get a
- to get a
- to get a
- The application states that you may not give fraudulent information on your registration (false company names are SO common nowadays)
- TRANSFER OF OWNERSHIP (phrased as 'change of registrant' was *expressly* NOT POSSIBLE, except for one condition, being when one company purchases all the assetts of another (so mergers, things like that).
This was in here SPECIFICALLY to prevent the type of behavior we see today.
Then.. Internic (NSI) started charging a fee for registration, claiming the US Govt did not wish to fund it anymore, as it was no longer a US-only issue (which is true)
They came up with the $100/first 2 years followed by $50/year registration fee. This made sense. Domains took forever to register. It *DOES* cost money to do this.
Somewhere along the line, and I'm not clear why or what happened, or who to blame, but these rules stopped being enforced. NSI encouraged people to register
In short, the breakdown of the original rules caused the system to go to hell.
You know, when an article like this comes out, and the gets posted on Slashdot, I have to wonder if the folks mentioned therein suddenly have there foreheads break out in a cold sweat.
I'm normally not one to advocate guerrilla tactics for anything short of the repression of human rights, but at this point, I think greatdomains.com, and to a lesser extent the NSI, are fair game for email avalanches and, what the heck, a few crudely-spelled ungrammatical aspersions cast on the genetic integrity of their ancestors.
I don't see anybody getting upset because they can't use the username mike@aol.com. They apply creativity and imagination to come up with something original.
Err, yeah, but that someone is slightly inconvenienced, but they didnt spend weeks on writing up plans for deploying a billion dollar business around that address!!
ANd also they didnt pay a wad of cash to secure it!!!
...why am I replying to articles so old they are about to be archived, and noone wiull ever read my comment?????
--she sings from somewhere you can't see...
Wouldn't it be better to pay $10,000 now, rather than wait until you are successful? If you are working for a well-funded startup, it shouldn't be a big deal. People are very used to typing www.WHATEVER.com. The net ending could confuse your customers.
Remeber that Altavista failed to secure its domain name, Altavista.com, when they were first Digital was first starting the search engine because the guy who owned it wanted something like $10,000 for it and Digital never thought it would become a commercial venture. When Compaq bought them, they realized that they needed the Altavista domain name, and ended up paying $3,000,000 for it in the end. Anyway, I don't know what your business and maybe the net domain is okay. I'm just giving you a little food for thought.
Sig goes here
Instead of trying to fix these little things, I think NSI and all the others should disallow transfers whatsoever! No cybersquatting!!!
However, I still fail to believe that there is no legal recourse for the man. I think a lawsuit for stealing the domain is perfectly legitimate, and I bet it would hold given the right judge (its all about the judge).
Felix
------ Warning! You are too close!
Did Wired really mean to say
...
"[Network Solutions] offers no guarantees and won't be liable for registration gaffs"?
Unlike a "gaffe", French for "social blunder", a "gaff" is (apart from the original meaning of a large fishing hook on a stick):
"A trick or gimmick, especially one used in a swindle or to rig a game",
... or
"Harshness of treatment; abuse"....
----
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
Sorry, but NSI is in charge of the domain transfer from party A to party B. If party C gets the domain then that is NSIs fault. Their job is to insure that domains are transferred correctly. If someone was selling a house, a car, stocks, etc... this would not even make headlines because if the transferring party bungled it up they would pay. NSI is being very arrogrant in claiming they are not at fault. If I had money to throw around I would donate some to the legal defense fund of the poor guy who lost his domain because NSI screwed up. People are just afraid because there isn't a legal precendent for this yet and the guy who lost races.com doesn't have the money to battle one out in court.
As for the people at GreatDomains.com why can't you guys be the nice guy and sell this guy the domain for a reasonable price. You guys know what happened. I don't know how you can sleep good at night knowing what happened.
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
NSI has done stupid things like this before. A customer of the ISP where I used to work wanted to register a personal domain name which was kind of clever, and still available. We submitted a "new domain" request, using the correct template with all the necessary information.
A week later, we still hadn't heard anything, which wasn't unusual, but definitely a LONG time, and we resent the request. That "new domain" request DID come back a few days later, but it said that the domain was already taken, and indeed it was -- the "created" date was one or two days after we had made the second request...
I trust Microsoft much more than Network Solutions...
--
E2 IN2 IE?
I had a feeling that by opening up competing domains, something like this would of happened.
Personally, I think that there should be a monopoly on the domain name arena. Doesn't have to necessarily be a commercial group. All I said when NSI lost the monopoly was that domain names was going to get messy.
"Network Solutions couldn't just delete the registration since it was filed by Register.com. The company contacted Register.com and asked them to do a favor and give it back, but Register.com said no, we're under contract with the guy who registered it from us."
Sometimes, monopolies can be good.
+++
Mike DeMaria
Want an alternate to the GPL? Find out about it here.
Don't we all remember the time when it was free to register domain names? Until this one company, Internic, Network Solutions, decided to charge us for it. You just can't trust guys like this anymore. I pity myself for giving these jackasses $70.
-FweE-
That's how I would describe Network Solutions. They're a bunch of slimeballs who were just getting used to their monopoly on domain names, and now they're doing everything they can to squeeze the last bit of milk out of their cash cow.
/dev/null. I've been trying to change the 2ndaries for a couple of my domains for weeks.. but no luck. People tell me the only way to get stuff done these days is to get a ticket number, then phone network solutions and complain--don't bother waiting for nothing to happen.
They don't care about domain registrants at all, and obviously in this case, even less because the guy didn't register his domain through a method that provided NSOL with the most profits. This fits nicely with their domain dispute policy which basically favours the bigger lawyer, on the theory that NSOL will get sued less often if they side with the money.
DNS is a disaster now. For the last few months any request that isn't accompanied by a check writtn out to NSOL appears to go to
It'd be great if we could arrest these guys and charge them with incompetence. Lock them up for 20 years.
One wonders if anyone at NSI benefitted from this "botched" transaction. In an age of automated scripts, if these "errors" don't happen to most people using the service, it seems reasonable to suspect human intervention.
One rule for making alot of money in the business world: "Location, Location, Location"
Of course, us webheads know that's why you want to own microsoft.com or ibm.com.
However, if something didn't go right with the domain registration, it's *not* the end of the world.
I understand why somebody should be upset, since he had a "verbal contract" with NSI, but something happened.
I don't see anybody getting upset because they can't use the username mike@aol.com. They apply creativity and imagination to come up with something original.
so, maybe racing.com is taken, take reallykick-assracing.com. Contrary to what you might believe, there is more to web success than an URL. Look at slashdot, freshmeat, and 32bitsonline. They don't really have beautiful URLs. You have to market the site once it's set up
That's just my 3 pfennigen.
I do what the voices on my console tell me to do.
They are supposedly the ones who sold the domain when it shouldn't have been available (due to NSI's failure it seems), and they are the people who can do something about it.
Also, send hordes of email to the guy who owns races.com now.
I work for a company that has a .net domain name, because the .com domain was already taken.
We were recently contacted by the guy who owns the .com domain name, who now wants us to pay him something like USD $10,000 for the .com name.
I told our president that he should defintely not pay. The domain name speculators are just trying to leech money off others, without providing any useful service themselves.
It's kind of funny... the guy (who has the .com name) says he's looking to sell it, and has got other bidders. Hah! We've got the trademark tied up in the USA, so no one else is going to touch it. We'll just wait for it to become available for the regular price.
If people didn't have such a hang-up about .com domain names, there wouldn't be this kind of problem. Granted, we're not looking to start a portal site that people will hopefully stumble across by accident. But I sure as heck didn't find Slashdot by guessing at a domain name. Actually, except for major companies (like IBM) I don't usually try to guess a domain name, but use a directory instead.
Even if I'm trying to start a portal, I'm not going to pay big bucks for a good name. I'll just come up with another.
1)The ownership of a domain should _never_ change, especially when there's a DNS transfer involved. The only part that changes is the DNS info at the bottom (and possibly the tech contact). But under no cirumstances should this guy's name have been removed from administrative/billing roles.
2)He was using NSI's new "Worldnic" service, which gives you the same thing as the old registration, but costs $40 more. I'm the hostmaster at my place of employment, and the new system sucks. Whereas before one email + one reply was sufficent to make a change, now there are 3 different login/passwd combinations that need to be used to get anything useful done. I always thought the mail-back verification was more than safe enough; but it seems to me someone could try and brute force a password in order to steal a domain if they _really_ wanted to.
--BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous
I've also had my share of bad experiences with Network solutions.
I have a private domain name registered, so my name is in their system. Several months ago their billing database was corrupted (at least in my case) and I became the billing contact for a random domain.
The first I heard of this is when I received a bill for that domain. I checked their whois database and found that I had become the billing contact. I sent them a polite email notifying them of the mistake, but they have so far refused to correct the error.
I instead was forced to contact the true owners of the domain and ask them to complain to Network Solutions.
It really scares me that a company whose entire business is in keeping a database of information can't even keep their billing database accurate.
Doug
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
So why is it that NSI is allowed to put into their registration agreement that "OK, it's your ass if you've done anything wrong, and we'll stick it to you, but if we screw up, well, that's just too bad." This doesn't make any sense to me. Yes, it's a binding contract, and you really should read the terms of a contract you're "signing," but this seems extremely one-sided to me. Even my credit card company is nicer than this...
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Form another registry. We can create a new TLD and nest things underneath there, but with one important difference over other projects like AlterNIC - the option to override the root nameservers. How come? Well, I for one am sick of hearing about Multi-Mega Conglomarate of Super Corporation Enterprises Inc, Ltd. using trademark law to snap up domains even remotely similar to their own, and often unfairly. My solution: first come, first serve, end of story. There will be no trademarks in the DNS system. There will be no money to be had in the system. There's a few other ideas I want to throw in, but that's the big one - root namespace overriding.
I also think registration should be very easy - if the domain isn't used, click [register] and you're live after filling in the fields. The technologies there.
e-mail me off slashdot, I'd like to hear what you think..
Network Solutions has been screwing me for years. I have spent well over $1000 and countless hours putting up with their shit. Once they actuall fucked up and switched around the contact information of my domain with someone elses. Both me and the guy who I had gotten the contact information switched with worked on getting everything corrected. It took 4 fucking months and I sent 127 e-mail messages total. They finally fixed it when the other guy e-bombed their system with contact change forms for 3 days straight. And guess what! Kuroi Tsuki Networks still has no web presence because NSI is full of idiots! The registration changes won't take! After submitting the form and replying to the confirmation, I get a message back reporting an incorrect contact e-mail address. AND IT IS THE CORRECT ADDRESS!!!! AGH! Oh, and as for changing registrars, I have been trying to do so ever since the new registrars came about. NSI won't give up my domain! Please not I am not the only one who has had such problems, I have heard at least 100 different similar accounts of such problems. FUCKING NSI!
Here, Here!
For a list of alternative domain registars other the NSI, check this out.
Got a beef? Plug a name into the Bizarre Rumour Generator!
For a list of accredited alternatives to the NSI , check this out
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Earth first? Oooh, and I was thinking of paying the rent.
Notice that the five day wait was because he bought the extra cost "registration plus"? One thing I have noticed with bureaucracies, whether it's Netsol or UPS or the Gov, is that they tend to do O.K.when they are doing the same old same-old, but the slightest deviation from that path (like buying an "extra", or asking UPS to hold a package at the counter) causes them to self destruct. The robots collecting the paychecks aren't programmed for it.
Although it is quite inexpensive to employ seat-warming automatons, it can't do much for customer satisfaction, and can be used effectivly only where either (a) the customer doesn't care (or doesn't know enough to care) or (b) the customer has no where else to go.
Now that NetSol's customers have some place else to go, will that leave Netsol with only the Dumb and Non-Caring as customers? And will Netsol dumb-down their services even more to meet the desires of their new, streamlined customer base?
Just get rid of them. Give the database to a non-profit group. Network solutions needs shutdown to better society.
The same thing goes with other monopolies such as telephone, electricity, gas, and others. These too need to be turned over to non-profit groups. You'll never get good service, fair service, and decent customer service when profit is involved. Just recently I called the *ASSHOLES* at Sprint/United Telephone about getting a 56k line and I was told it would be $236/mo+$600 install. This line only went about 4 miles. Tell me, is that fair? I don't think it is. I'm beginning to think a 'midnight hatchet job' is in order to help punish them for this.
Monopolies are out to fuck you, it's time something is done about it. If physically destroying the telephone network is the solution then so be it. The same goes for NSI, they have fucked over so many people it's ridiculous. They need to pay for it. We need to start beating these corporations around for our own good. They don't provide anything that we couldn't do much better. It's time for these greedy assholes to vacatee, for they have fucked us over too many times.
Enclose a check with all letters you send to NSI. If you want to make a complaint write out a nice big one for $50 If you need to get tech supports give 'em $10 If you want to change any aspect of anything about $100 should do.
Remember, bribes work!
This whole week i've been trying to change the DNS entries on my domain... They assigned my hosts some host-id's, but when I entered it, they said it was wrong. Then i did it by IP/FQDN, and it gave me PINKY.WORLDNIC.COM and THEBRAIN.WORLDNIC.COM (wtf is that about? both my hosts showed up in whois as hosts)... so I harrassed them to no end... And FINALLY i have my domains pointed to the right place. Took two weeks though.
Isn't there any other way? I know there are alternate registrars, (forgive me, i'm a slight nooby at this) but do they also do the host registration stuff?
NSI Sucks dudes/dudettes... i say we revolt! Viva la revolcuion!
"Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair... Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy was he?"
NSI should be hit with a large damage award on GP.
I'm not crazy about name squatters, but I don't really blame greatdomains.com on this one. They requested an available domain, they got it. NSI screwed up by giving them an domain that was already taken.
RSI Injured geek wins against Mattel, Mattel still retaliates!
I just went to www.greatdomains.com, and no offense but no matter how many times I see that crap I think it is the dumbest shit on the face of the planet. Who in their right mind would pay half a million for a domain name, this is totally crazy, I just don't get it, what the hell is wrong with people?
Because its become obvious that the domain name system is fatally broken, is there any alternatives currently in development? If not, what would comprise such a system? It would be great to have a system which allowed everyone to have a sensible name, not just the fortune 500 companies and domain brokers. For example, look at GreatDomains.com, the people who now own www.races.com. They are sitting on 173,000 domains with an estimated value (according to their web page) of $2,519,578,000! I for one am tired of having to register names like thisnameislongbecauseeverythingelseistaken.com so these guys can make it rich.
I have yet another 'horror story' to relate, though it ended happily. There was a domain two of my friends and I greatly desired. It was unregistered. We submitted our registration for it, and was told during the time our registration request was being processed, that the domain had just been purchased! It was by a domain prospector who was selling it for $15000. I found it very suspicious that a domain that had been unregistered would -suddenly- just be registered right when we requested it. It could have been coincidence. It could have been either an individual or NSI itself getting kickbacks from the domain prospectors (Aka, leaching vermin) for tipping them off on domain requests prior to their being processed.
Anyway, on the bright side of this, after several emails expressing our irritation to both the domain prospecting company and NSI, the domain prospectors agreed to give us back the name. (Something which surprised the heck out of me.) It really wasn't that great a name, I guess they figured it wasn't worth the hassle.
While I feel pretty sorry for the guy who got ripped off, and am not the slightest bit surprised to see N$I acting this way, I think that if he was basing the entire bussiness on the url then he had the wrong attitude to begin with.
I mean, in what other field would people base their entire bussiness plan on the NAME of the fucking company? Yes, as long as the Internet is still new to most of its users, and people still feel lost and unsure of where to go, owning a domain like buy.com or sex.com is a goldmine. But in the long run, you are on pretty thin ice if that is that is the base of your bussiness (yes, I know Wall-street doesn't agree with me).
The web is not, and will never be, a keyword based system. In fact, if you read TLBs original paper on WWW for Cern, he specifically mentions having developed the Web because keyword based systems are BAD. Hypetext provides the ultimate decentralized namespace, and no one can argue that people don't become less and less dependant on obvious domain names as they become more at home with the Web and the way it works.
Did Ebay, Yahoo, or Slashdot need obvious domains to succeed? Does the domain not being nerdnews.com detract from Slashdot's popularity and success?
I have no clue what sort of a market there actually if for the website he wanted to start, but if his bussiness-plan WAS sound, I would recommend he thinks of another name and goes on. I'm no good at this, but why not for example on-your-marks.com or theyreoff.com? For someone more creative with words there must be hundreds of race related terms not urled yet.
I really hope that someday people will realize that the domain name is not the website. If a site is good enough it can be just as successfull with some clever, easy to remember, but not generic domain, as it can if you spend millions on buying the most obvious related word you can afford...
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We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
I have also had a horrible experience with Network Soltuions. My old web host was not meeting my expectations, so I decided to use another web host. I submitted the paperwork to Network Soltuions at the beginning of a month. Since I was busy with school, etc I didn't have time to contact them for a while. At the end of that month I still had not heard anything back. I wrote to their "customer support" staff and had did not heard anything back for 2 weeks. Then I submitted the transfer paperwork again and it got done in 2 weeks. The transfer was done in accordance with my second request (I know because of the "issue tracking number" they give you when you submit a request.) To this day I have not heard back from either customer support or my first request to have the domain transferred. You would think that a company that provides service like this would have had action taken against it a long long time ago.
Hmmm... Just got this thought: Could enough reports to the Better Business Bureau Online possibly do anything?
Law is not black and white. There are such things as unfair enrichment. Look at Vault v. Quaid. Part of the court decision included that it could not be negotiated, etc.
NSI is a monopoly, which should entitled the other party to argue that they must be hold to a higher standard.
RSI injured geek wins against Mattel, Mattel still retaliates!
The company I work for is also trying to get a domain name transferred from one of our acquisition's previous owners. It was 7 weeks ago that we submitted the notarized paperwork, and they have yet to process it.
They won't even tell us whether they received the paperwork and that it was in "good order." We're lucky in that we have a redirect on the original server to one of our's, but this is a less than ideal solution for a revenue generating website in the long term.
I myself have had problems simply changing my whois record - there's a bit of a logistical catch-22 if your email address has expired.
I do agree with a previous poster who says that if your business plan depends on the domain name, you're probably in trouble anyway. Nevertheless, NSI is not doing the job they were supposed to. I accept that there has to be a single controlling point, but there should probably be several points of access. Businesses in particular would be more than happy to pay $100 per year for the names if they could actually get service.
After all, policy must apply fairly to all.
(I'm not going to do this, but I have to say that the NSI are leaving themselves -wide- open on this one, and I doubt any judge would be sympathetic to them, if they did complain.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I'd love to hear Mae Ling Mak's opinion.
From http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/makechange s/mc-decision (the page you go to after you enter the domain name you wish to modify):
NEW! Priority Registrant Name Change Service For $199 per domain name change, we will process your Registrant Transfer and Legal Name Change in two business days after receiving complete and correct information *. Our standard processing time is 3 to 6 weeks.
(so, like, sorry you got screwed, but next time pay $200 extra and we'll do it right...)
How about only people with a karma level above X can post for the first few minutes?
(For more discussion, the moderation thread.)
i dont display scores, and my threshhold is -1. post accordingly.
I just had a look at his site and I've came to the conclusion that society does not appreciate his presence.
This guy is trash, he deserves to be shit on.
Domain names (and system names, for that matter) were invented as a convenience, nothing more.
As time goes on, I think we're seeing that people get to a site through search engines, portals, links on related sites, whatever. The significance of a "good" domain name has waned, and will continue to become less important as time goes on.
Then some time later, that same pond-scum contacted one of my SysAdmin colleagues with the same offer. Before he could blast him, I told him how to string the worm along again and deliver the whammy in the end :-).
All quite amusing, actually :-).
I figure domain name squatters are on about the same rung of the evolutionary ladder as spammers.
The public depends on this essential service. The government never should have handed it over. The government shouldn't give them unlimited protection. This mess just has to stop.
And I want my money back. I want my domain back. Right now it is in registration limbo because the handles use non-existing e-mail addresses, old mailing addresses, and simply have the wrong administrative contacts, which were denied transfer to begin with. Now nobody is allowed to update the records!
What's going on here??? I haven't even mentioned cybersquatting and this black market for domain transfer payoffs. NSI got their hands dirty with something far beyond them, and they aren't handling things in any sort of reasonable manner. They've demonstrated that they intend to continue this way and I think that the public is entitled to some damages. There have got to be some implied warranty laws out there, and some judges not looking forward to defending big lousy behemoths on thinly veiled precedent. There certainly is enough incentive for the lawyers--I smell a handsome commission a-brewing. But please, the sooner the better!
I am an attorney, not a computer expert. Why not simply register one's domains in the name of a holding corporation, and transfer the shares in the corporation? Obviously, since it costs a little dough - maybe a couple hundred bucks - to form a corporation, this wouldn't make sense for every domain name. But for something like "races.com" it would seem sensible. Would this work with nic or whomever?
What's this "nothing they can do" line? Are they so troubled financially they can't even give his money back? Have they forgotten they aren't a government monopoly anymore, and need to be in the customer's good graces? Pshee...
Just look at all the legal hurdles Go.com is going through to build their "Go Network"
The days of the gee-wizz clever domain getting hits just based on it's name, are numbered.
How is it I never received an invoice or email, you might ask?
Well it seems that when I placed the appropriate requests to have our addressing changed, somehow NSI managed to change the ownership address, but failed to change the contact addresses.
This in spite of the fact that I had email confirmations sitting in a mail folding acknowledging receipt and processing of the change requests!
Moral of the story: NEVER TRUST NSI!
When I spotted this story on Wired this morning, I decided to look this guy up (John McLanahan) - I've had my own experiences with NSI (not quite to the same extreme as he has), and wanted to find out some more details about his situation and see if I could help somehow.
Tried searching the web for him - found a 29-year-old John McLanahan from Boston who came in 134th in a half-marathon, another who is a corporate lawyer in Georgia, and one who lived sometime in the late 1700s (from a few geneology sites). From the Wired article, it sounded like the Boston McLanahan might be the one (right age range, into racing) but there was no e-mail address listed on the marathon results.
So, I went to the NSI WHOIS server, searched for "McLanahan, John", and found a John McLanahan with a Boston address (actually, three or four handles with the same name and mailing address) who currently owns a number of domains related to racing (roadraces.com, sailingraces.com, runningclubs.com, raceplanning.com, raceinformation.com, coolraces.com) - sounds like the right guy...
...and then I notice the other domains this guy has registered. It looks like he owns a number of domains that are stock-ticker symbols for .com and hi-tech companies (TalkCity, Voyager.Net, ChemDex), some life-insurance related domains (weblifeinsurance.com, lifeinsuranceinfo.com), and some more generic business-related domains (bankinginformation.com, companyinterview.com). Unless his business plan covers more than just racing, I'd say he's been in the domain-speculation game for a while himself... especially when just about every domain I tried going to said "domain for sale".
Not to excuse NSI's more-than-usual imcompetence, but suddenly I don't feel quite so sorry for this guy...
________________________
Corporate Jenga: You take a blockhead from the bottom and you put him on top...
Doesn't anybody find it odd that GreatDomains.com and Register.com appear to be the same company or at least affiliated? When I went to the register.com site, they had a banner-ad running that said 'The First Step on the Web' with both the Register.com and GreatDomains.com logo's on the one banner-ad.
Is it any wonder register.com won't give the name back? Their own sister company is the one who stole it. I can see it now, everytime a domain expires or is released to the pool in any way, register.com/greatdomains.com decide if they want it and within minutes have it stolen. They probably have people who sit there monitoring newly available names 24/7.
It seems to me that the relationship between GreatDomains.com and register.com is totally inappropriate. It's like letting the fox guard the chickens.
Quite frankly, I think selling domain names should fall under the same laws as scalping tickets. You sell them for face-value (cost of registration) or you don't sell them at all. I just did a little experiment and just starting making up names of domains that might be nice to have and checking them. At least 1/3 of the names I tried took me to web-sites offering said name for sale.
If I remember right, trademark law requires that you have a product or service associated with a trademark, can't we have a similar law for domains?
There was a court case that ruled that domains are property, in, I think, Virginia. That might be used to impose more obligations on NSI under property law. This will take a good lawyer.
IMO, the new owner does not have clear title to the domain name. Consider this example:
Joe agrees to sell me his car.
I give Joe the money. We go to the registry of motor vehicles with the title, wait in line for 2 hours, deal with a surly and incompetent clerk, and pay a fee for transfer of the title.
Instead of correctly processing the paperwork, the registry then puts the title on a bulletin board in the lobby.
A vagrant comes and takes it off the bulletin board, goes inside, and registers Joe's car in the vagrant's name.
The vagrant will not have legal ownership (clear title) of the car. The transaction is not valid.
One day one of our customers called (he sure was pissed off too) that e-mail to their domain suddenly had stopped working. After a few minutes of poking around I figured out that the domain wasn't on the root servers. I checked whois. Everything seemed ok.
I asked the secretary if we had paid it (we handle everything with internic including payment). We had, and they had charged our credit card too.
Next I tried to pay for the domain using their web-based service to check the status of the domain. Unpaid. What the fuck?! We repaid the domain, just in case. After half a dozen threats through email, fax and phone (finding a number where a human will answer your call at internic is fun, try it some time) they finally re-enabled the domain. I don't think we ever got the extra $35 we paid back, and trying to do so just simply isn't worth our time.
The only notification they sent was a "your domain hasn't been paid yet" in paper. This would be fine, except they've sent those for quite a few domains that have been paid well in advance and previously there hadn't been any problems. There were no "your domain will be closed in x weeks" mails, just the original invoice and that paper.
Btw., would anyone have any recommendations about alternate domain registrars? Requirements are no silly web-based forms (PGP-signed email forms are so much nicer when you register tons of domains), fast service with no fuckups and price (the least important, since even one fuckup costs more than the domain itself does in 10 years)
It sounds to me like NSI is screwing lots of people over. I am yet another person who has a registered domain, who is having trouble with NSI updating my info.
My listed e-mail address rather abruptly became invalid, so I needed to change my contact info as well as my DNS servers. Fortunately (or so I thought) I have an associate who still has a valid e-mail address listed as one of the contacts on my domain agreement. He filled out the necessary change forms, and EVEN AFTER RECEIVING CONFIRMATION that the changes were completed, they are not.
I am also having trouble getting my contact info changed, also despite having received conformation that it was done. I finally managed to find a phone number for NSI (by doing a whois lookup on them) and called to complain, and they now say they'll do the change if I fax them a signed letter with a photocopy of my driver's license.
Why should I need to do this? We already know that they collect data about their customers, and providing them with a copy of my ID will give them more information about me than I feel they have a right to have.
Sounds like we should band together and file a class action law suit against these assholes. I hate lawyers and lawsuits but I can't think of anyone more deserving of being sued at the moment.
captain_carnage@hotmail.com [ My normal e-mail address has been broken since 11/30/99 and will continue to be until the inept and unscrupulous jackasses at NSI decide to change it ]
totalnic.net , 35$ for 2 years and a hell of a lot faster and simpler than NSI.
Heh. Are you so sure they're not somehow related?
Let's examine the issue, shall we?
Hmmm...
One wonders if the status of a given name is even maintained in a single transactional database. Or maybe they have defined name claim and release transactions, but not transfer? Can there be race conditions between competing registering businesses?
Also, how can one be sure the very act of checking a name doesn't pass it to a speculator? It's apparently not encrypted, so who is in a position to snoop all those form submissions? Maybe one should be careful not to "check" unless ready to commit immediately. Hm. Are registering companies allowed to sell their server logs? What if they just extract the names being checked?
go to totalnic.net and they will transfer them out for 35$(same fee as registering a new one with them)
>So why is it that NSI is allowed to put into their registration agreement
Because they have lawyers. If you owned NSI, why wouldn't you if you could?
>Even my credit card company is nicer than this...
True but then again NSI just sets ups domain names, credit card companies transfer billions of dollars a year and its mostly based on the trust of the consumers.
Oh, and I do agree with you that its all one-sided.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
1) Dude PAYS someone thousands of dollars for the domain races.com.
2) NSI bungles the transfer (sucks, but they did)
3) under the new system, register.com has already sold the domain to someone.
4) NSI asks register.com (who they have NO authority over) if they can have it back, and explains what happened.
5) register.com says 'no, our cusomter has it under contract already. we can't back out'
6) NSI says 'I'm sorry, there is nothing we can do'
Now. I see 3 main points to consider.
1) If you are going to buy a domain from someone (a horrible practice), you should make it THEIR responsibility to ensure that the domain is transfered correctly, and they should receive payment once the domain is in your posession. NOT before.
2) If Internic even mentioned to him on the phone 'okay, we messed it up once, sorry, we'll put it through again correctly' or anything to that effect, then he has a case against them. A written promise is not needed. They claimed they would do something for him, then didn't follow through, and it will cost him money.
2) The whole concept of treating domain names like property is bunk. They are *NOT* property. If they *were*, it would be easy to buy and sell them, and it isn't.
what exactly has greatdomains.com done wrong, besides being immoral? Legaly NSI is to blame, and register.com's affiliation with greatdomains is not much, anyone can sign up to be an affiliate.
I've yet to see NSI follow any sort of pattern with our requests. Some changes are accepted the first time and go through quickly. Other times I've had to resend the [binary-identical] request 20 or 30 times before NSI's robot decides that it is really a valid request and then waited for an insanely long period of time for a trivial database update[1]. The bottom line is that we try never to do domain updates of any sort without planning for a month's delay. [1] Forget the usual /. "My Linux PC could do better" mantra. In NSI's case, I'm starting to wonder if my Visor would be faster...
First off -- I'm not surprised about the whole situation, especially www.register.com's refusal to give it back. "contract with the man" my ass - I invite you to check out greatdomains.register.com Yes, the two companies are affiliates - which explains the greatdomains.com advertisement on every page that is returned when a user searches for a domain name already in use. Now, I'll admit that this is absolutely pathetic of Network Solutions, and for one of the oldest domain name registrars in the business, they're certainly acting quite spineless and cowardly in this situation. Still, though, I cannot help but be FURIOUS at greatdomains.com, and now register.com as I found out that the two are affiliates. How low can they be, to register that domain name the EXACT instant it becomes available -- apparently, they have an automated system that searches for such domains, or something of the like. And greatdomains.com doesn't even bother -- ANYWHERE ON ITS SITE - to describe its motive, and how domain names - usually costing $70 - are upwards of $500,000 on their site. This is where my disappointment comes in...
Nope, it's not disappointment for either Network Solutions nor register.com/greatdomains.com. It's disappointment for the hundreds of thousands of SlashDot members out there who, though continuously complaining that they're 'sick of cybersquatters like greatdomains.com,' do absolutely nothing about it. Guys, we can comment about it til the sun goes down and that's not making a damn difference. But rather than moving on and forget about it, why don't we do something about it? Though small in comparison to the likes of c|net or ZDNET, the userbase of Slashdot is certainly large enough to put a dent in register.com's and greatdomain.com's wallet. Or at least make them sit up and take notice.
So why not, to start at least, an organized campaign boycotting greatdomains.com and register.com? I've found sportworld@msn.com (listed administrative contact) to be the most likely address to be checked - better than filling out the greatdomains.com support & bug report. I propose that each and every slashdot member out there who is sick of these types of stories, or having to pay $500,000 to a sleezy company who bought a domain for $70, write a letter - perhaps we could post a template of one here or, if Rob approves of this idea, on the main page - to register.com and greatdomains.com, telling them that (though it'd be inaccurate) every single one of the hundreds of thousands of slashdot members will now be using Network Solutions (in an attempt to get them to return the domain), and will definitely NOT be registering domains from greatdomains.com - and spreading the word as well. This is only the start. Letters could be sent to CNET, ZDNET, and just about any other electronics information site out there, publicizing this story and shining the light on what greatdomains.com does, including registering domains for cheap prices just for the purpose of reselling them for tons of cash. And of course, don't forget to mention their partnership with register.com The goal of this would be not so much to get McLanahan's domain back (though surely this is one goal), but in general to expose such companies as greatdomains.com/register.com and their motives.
I am not kidding around here, I'm talking about an organized effort of every slashdot member who's sick of this sort of thing, with letters to any person or company who might seem relevant in this matter, and perhaps a website set up for our campaign. I know some (most) of you are looking right now to get back at Network Solutions for being so weakminded and "hey, it wasn't us" about this. But right now I'm having trouble placing full blame (though they probably deserve it) on Network Solutions, having just seen (for the first time) greatdomains.com. Granted, I've seen cybersquatters in the past, but never have I seen such a slick business as greatdomains.com, who try to act as just another large, respectable organization, overshadowing their unjust motives - which I feel could change if such motives are exposed to enough people publicly, and especially if such companies are boycotted by slashdot's users (their target audience, mainly), among other people.
Guys, we've got an entire slashdot community and a voice. Let's use it.
Skeptics of the campaign need not apply.
I've been wanting to transfer my domains OUT of NSI's purview. I don't find any such functionality on thier site. Last time I looked at register.com, there was a blurb about this to the effect that this capability had not yet been implemented.
Is this currently possible? And if so, is it currently too damn dangerous to attempt?
======
"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
It looks to me like Mr McLanahan took the correct third step:
1. Complain to NSI
2. Talk to a lawyer
3. Take it to the media
Guess what 4 is?
(did anyone else get that insanely irritating flashing ad tile on wired? And they say video games make you want to kill!)
Check joker.com.
If you order tons of domains, you can get a special account that verifies based on your pgp key (not sure if gpg keys work, they should though). Also they will bill you for your domains as opposed to normal registration which you pay up front. I just ordered two domains the other day from them for US ~70 and it was great. The records were done within 24 hours and I am a happy camper.
I found joker through a suggestion of a slashdot user. They're fast. They have an SSL encrypted process. (heLLO? network solutions?) Ignore the fact that they use poor english on the site (it IS their second language) and you'll be happy. The only issue pain was having to re-register my name servers and contact info with corenic since network solutions info isn't corenic registered but that was cool with me. When my other 5 domains expire next year, I'm rolling them over to joker.com. They're fast, simple and in short, they kick ass.
Check em out.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
The disclaimer is what is known as "boilerplate", and is not necessarily legally valid.
Back when steam-powered machinery was popular, every boiler that you could buy had a plate attached to it upon which was engraved:
"We are not responsible for any damage or loss of life due to this boiler exploding. Use at your own risk." or something similar.
Well, boilers exploded, people died, and the courts finally decided that this disclaimer had no legal validity and if you made a defective boiler, you could be sued.
Not defending NSI here, but it really seems that when they devised their system originally, they gave no thought to the idea that one day they'ed need to open it up and let other people in. And now that they need to, they've been so unhelpful in opening their systems... But really, it just sounds like they never anticipated this happening, plus they've got the most arrogant staff to go along with it...
Perhaps the gov't should just yank away their contract and run the root nameservers themselves until a suitable replacement is devised?
And register.com will be blocked for email in either direction. IMO, they "aided & abetted."
All of them will be added immediately to my email reject filters at home.
Rough equivalent of a UDP (Usenet Death Penalty)? Why not? As I noted elsewhere: not later than Monday morning, greatdomains.com, races.com and anything else related to SportWorld, Ltd. will be locally "black-holed" where I work. If it turns out that register.com is related to the scalpers at greatdomains.com, they will be completely blocked as well. They will at least be email-blocked due to what would appear to be at least implicit cooperation with the cyber-squatting worms at greatdomains.com.
This story, if true, is VERY SCARY!! Most people including myself were under the assumption that a domain couldn't be lost during a transfer assuming it was fully paid for and not involved in any disputes. According to NSI, this is not the case. This comes down to the credibility of the domain name system. People will not trust domain registrations if they can lose them for no just cause.
.COM, .ORG, .NET, and .EDU and John McLanahan in my layman's opinion has a case against NSI since they control the central registry and are negligent for the mistake - KEEP IN MIND THAT NSI HAD PRIOR KNOWLEDGE OF THE PROBLEM AND YET IT HAPPENED AGAIN AND NOW NSI REFUSES TO CORRECT THE REGISTRATION - in my laymans opinion, this is the legal strategy that John McLanahan should persue in regards to getting relief. If anything NSI may at some point just settle out of court and at least John would get something for all his trouble and teach NSI to take their business more seriously since domain names are critical infrastructure.
*** YES, NSI IS RESPONSIBLE AND MUST FIX THEIR MISTAKE AND HERE'S WHY ***
NSI is claiming that while they made a mistake, there's nothing they can do since the domain was registered by someone at Register.com. Nice try, but here's the problem:
Keep in mind that NSI also controls the *central registry* for
"This is a really unfortunate thing that happened," admits Network Solutions spokeswoman Cheryl Regan. "But [McLanahan] is not a customer of ours. He was about to become one, but he didn't. There's really nothing we can do for him."
How the FUCK can she say that!? He payed them money for the domain, yes? They were processing his file, yes? THEN HE'S A CUSTOMER.
Network Solutions should really get its ass sued for this. IANAL, but I don't believe the lawyer they quoted: this is a very straightforward case: McLanahan payed them, and he has forms that show that clearly. However the service he paid for was never provided. He quite clearly deserves at the very least a refund, and for their incompetence, probably some decent damages as well.
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Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
there were no other choices in the past and its very good that tthere are now. it was unfortunate that they had monopoly on it and something like that can not ever happen again because it ruins everybody.
what a crappy rip off service.
What about icann? i was just perusing(woa big word for me) their site and came accross the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp-policy-24oct99.htm
i think section 3 b. that he could sue icann or have a court petion force the trasfer of the domain to him. as long as he has proof, reciept from the seller, that the seller did infact trasfer the domain to him and therefore should not have been left for public sale.
Just my thoughts
End Transmission....
I've had my share of headaches with NSI's billing system..
This past summer, I registered a domain for myself... paid for it right away..
two months ago I started getting invoices from NSI, for the amount of $0.00 USD (yes, ZERO dollars..) the last two were marked "FINAL NOTICE"
So I emailed them, and asked why I'm getting invoices, and is their stupid billing system going to get my domain disconnected..
I got a reply saying that I can pay online by vising their website..
Not only does their billing system suck, but the people they have replying to billing inquiries can't damnwell read..
All I can say is that if they deregister my domain, I'm gonna sue their asses off.. and their "we're not responsible" policy be damned.
I'm pretty sure that it's been done. Most of the words in the Roget's Thesaurus that's available from Gutenberg are taken, it seems like. I haven't actually run my ~500K word list against whois, I don't want to get filtered. NSI only gives the full zones out to spammers who can pay for them, apparently, a desire to do legitimate statistical research isn't sufficient.
Anybody want to slip me a copy of the zones?
"Network Solutions - Original domain name registration and reservation services with variety of internet-related business offerings. Quick, dependable and reliable."
" ... a convenient, immediate means of securing Web addresses and other value-added services from Network Solutions. Fast, secure, and reliable ordering and payment is completed in one session, ..."
False advertising ? Is there an "Office of Fair Trading" in the US that might threaten them for making such bogus claims ?
i think countries other than the US would have a major problem with that, its one thing letting a US corporation control the root servers, its another thing letting the US gov't
Need a Catering Connection
As the Circuit Court said, "The fact that this form of intellectual property results from a service that NSI provides does not preclude the property from garnishment any more than the service provided by the Patent Office immunizes patents from garnishment."
In other words, it's property. Not just a name, but something that someone can own.
Cnet article on the ruling
After reading this article, I think that McLanahan has every bit of legal ground that he needs to file criminal charges against NSI for the theft of his property. Please remember that NSI is based in Herdon, Va, right near the very Circuit Court that issued the ruling. Mr McLanahan, if you're reading this, please go for it. As for NSI, we need something better, without a doubt.
itachi
A valid point, but a little ahead of the times. There is currently an airgap between mass media marketing and the interface to the Net. A human must transfer the "pointer" from the TV screen to the computer. .com names are as important as telephone numbers. .Furthermore, even if hypertext is really the most organic way of modelling cyberspace, the need for reliable naming services will not diminish in importance.
interesting.
I came into the story thinking how much I would hate NSI, and ended up thinking they really shouldn't be responsible.
Course, I still think it should be illegal to sell domain names. I wonder how many good names are locked up by these slimeball registration companies.
What does ICANN have to say about this problem? It was their testing period.
I AM, therefore I THINK!
NSI sells names for 35 bucks. That should be the max they can be sold for. There is no way if someone chooses to support name squatters for hundreds of thousands of dollars that they should be entitled to that. the max a domain name should be worth is 35 bucks, NSI's bug would only entitle this guy to that much if he had bought the name from them. He could have bought racesco, or theraces, or whatever, and wouldn't have been supporting a slimebag in the process. Looks like a NSI monopoly would have been a good thing in this case. Even though most of the people on this board would never admit it.
Well, I just bought a .com domain name from register.com. This is my first domain name and although the company is sleazy I had to choose them over network solutions because nsi makes you provide the isp and such before you are officially registered. Seeing as how the .net of my name was grabbed in the last week I felt I had to act quick Anyway, I noticed that register.com wants to make you pay for mail@mynewdomain.com is this how its ussually done? Or can I implement some software and do it myself?
you can't have read the article and still think there is anything else NSI could do now about it.
They are not the same company. Register.com runs an affiliate program (add a banner on your site and receive a cut of registration fees) and Greatdomains is an affiliate. Furthermore, Greatdomains is only an Ebay specifically for domains, someone else is using them to auction the races.com name, Greatdomains doesn't actually own it. Lastly I think there's nothing wrong with grabbing good GENERIC names and selling them later. Checking whether anyone has a "right" to a certain name is subjective and totally impractical, especially considering that tens of thousands of domains are registered every day. Don't get me wrong, I think it's immoral to grab names of exisiting companies and then extorting those companies. Although in this particular case, if I were the second illegitimate owner of races.com I would give the name back as I wasn't really supposed to have it in the first place.
would be nice to put this information in the origional story, since it is a critical point that most readers will not get.
please update the story stating that register.com was the one who took the name and wouldn't give it back, and worse yet, an affiliate of theirs was the one which bought the name and wanted to extort great amounts of $$$ from that.
very important information, and certainly provides an entirely different perspective on the real villian here.