I have had my share of websites that I have set up, or helped set up, and I have always used Network Solutions to check the availability of domain names. I've done that because I trust(ed) NetSol as they were the first registrar of domain names, their customer support has been good, and I believed that I wasn't going to get screwed when I visited their site (except for price, which is why I don't register with them anymore).
Well, it turns out that NetSol is registering the domain names that people have been looking up, thereby denying them the opportunity to register the name somewhere else, at a quarter of the cost, in a process called "front-running". Bastards.
Their "official" line is that they are protecting their "customers" - the people who are looking up the availability of a domain name. In reality they are blackmailing people into using their service. If you look up your domain name on NetSol, then go to GoDaddy to try to register it, it will show as "unavailable", and owned by NetSol. The only way you can get that name is to go back to NetSol and register there. NetSol says they hold the name for 5 days, after which it is released. I'm lucky, in that most of my websites are church sites and the pace of permissions in a church is rather slow, so by the time the request has been approved more than 5 days have passed.
Still, it is an unethical practice, and I will stop recommending Network Solutions to my clients as a possible domain name registrar and web host. Better still, I think I will tell them what NetSol is doing, and let them make up their own minds.
Read more about this here, here and here.
Well, it turns out that NetSol is registering the domain names that people have been looking up, thereby denying them the opportunity to register the name somewhere else, at a quarter of the cost, in a process called "front-running". Bastards.
Their "official" line is that they are protecting their "customers" - the people who are looking up the availability of a domain name. In reality they are blackmailing people into using their service. If you look up your domain name on NetSol, then go to GoDaddy to try to register it, it will show as "unavailable", and owned by NetSol. The only way you can get that name is to go back to NetSol and register there. NetSol says they hold the name for 5 days, after which it is released. I'm lucky, in that most of my websites are church sites and the pace of permissions in a church is rather slow, so by the time the request has been approved more than 5 days have passed.
Still, it is an unethical practice, and I will stop recommending Network Solutions to my clients as a possible domain name registrar and web host. Better still, I think I will tell them what NetSol is doing, and let them make up their own minds.
Read more about this here, here and here.
September 17, 2008 at 5:51 PM
ur also a bastard
September 18, 2008 at 10:14 PM
Oooh...I touched a nerve! Sometimes the truth hurts, huh?
At least you had balls enough to sign your name to the comment, and not hide behind the "anonymous" tag. Oh, wait.