Network Solutions used to be the only place you could go to buy a .com or other domain name. Years ago they lost their monopoly rights and a flood of low priced competitors entered the market. Today Network Solutions is a distant third in market share behind giants like GoDaddy and eNom. The main reason is price. Network Solutions continues to charge $35/year for a domain name, while others charge as little as $8 per year.
Network Solutions continues to make good money on renewals for all the domain names already registered to them (transferring to a new registrar is a pain), but few new customers come their way. Recently, though, they implemented a new “feature” that is designed to force some users to register domains with them.
As of Tuesday, if a user does a search on the site for a domain name, Network Solution immediately registers the domain in their own name. If the user then goes to a discount registrar to register the domain, it shows as unavailable. The user must then either not buy the domain, or go back to Network Solutions and pay their $35/year fee.
So far they’ve registered over 72,000 domain names based on user searches. They are all temporarily assigned a name server of “reserveddomainname” – the number of registrations pointing to this server is public data and can be seen here.
This isn’t costing the company anything, either. Registrars are permitted to register domains for five days without paying any fees to the domain name registry (in this case, Verisign). If they delete the domains after 5 days, which they will almost certainly do, they do not pay for the registration.
The five day grace period is designed to let registrars off the hook for credit card fraud, which is a big problem in the domain name industry. A lot of fraud is discovered very quickly – giving the grace period lets registrars reverse these transactions without getting hit with a fee. The fact that Network Solution is using the grace period to stop users from going to competitors is well outside of the original reasons for the rule. Users are already screaming (we’re getting emails). Expect competitors to scream next, and of course to copy the behavior.
We last covered Network Solutions in October 2007.
Were godaddy accused of this last year also Mike?
Michael,
I experienced this action with Network Solutions this week when registering country specific domains that my “discount registrar” doesn’t offer. Network Solutions charges an additional $12/year to forward. Nice scam – $(35+12)=$47.
That’s a very dirty tactic. But I guess competitors could do the same.
The same tactic is used by cheap search engines to register misspelled names of domains. They simply keep several million dollars held in earnest money at the registrar, register a 500,000+ domain names at a time, and see what hits over the next 5 days. 5 days later, register a different batch of 500,000+ domains to see what sticks. The whole practice stinks, and needs regulation.
F Network Solutions in the A. That’s one company that needs to die, badly.
PS: God Daddy – nice typo
Damn, that’s nasty! I’ve always wondered about this when I’m searching for a new domain name. You would think that you could trust a well-know company such as this!
It works. I just searched for: networksolutionssucksbigdonkeyballs.com on their site and Voila: http://networks...donkeyballs.com
Isn’t this just a modified version of ‘domain kiting’ / ‘domain tasting’:
http://en.wikip...i/Domain_kiting
Network Solutions’ fees are outrageous and the only way they can get revenue is relying on unsophisticated users going for dirty tactics such as this.
This is the best reason so far, in addition to the fees, NOT to use Network Solutions, and to let the world know not to use them either.
My buddy like to search using services like this, and I’ve told him not, but he keeps on doing it. I told him “do not search unless you are going to buy”. Otherwise I just “search” by typing the URL in directly, if it’s not there, then consider a later purchase. Kind of obvious they would pull this crap. Domain squatters are still as sketchy as the web was in the late 90’s.
All domain registrars do this. Must be fun to be in a business where this is what you have to do make money.
just reading that makes me feel dirty. i doubt verisign cares very much, as it still leads to real registrations.
however, if they’re providing free domain search capabilities it does seem logical (but not very ethical) for them to try and get the cost back by making you register it through them.
ps: /usr/bin/whois is your friend.
-mike
*Excuse the language*
Those sneaky money obsessed anti consumer bastards.
Most of the corporate America is like this, not just Network Solutions. From Banks, to cell phone companies, hospitals , insurance companies …. you name it !
@ babyjesus: You think forcing a user to buy a domain name through them is logical because they’re providing “free domain search capabilities?” Please. Google provides free search and doesn’t force anything on me in return.
Mike, thanks for exposing this scam for what it is. It reminds me of a company here in canada called the “Domain name registry of canada” that sends out “renewal” forms by mail trying to trick people into switching to them without realizing it.
From what I know, this story was quasi-broken a few days ago, at http://www.bill...ability-lookup/
Some concrete examples listed there as well.
What NS is doing is wrong. It’s a sleazy move. I don’t use them and I’m thankful I don’t.
@ George Favvas: Not exactly. But I consider them trying to get their money back for providing a free service as logical. They aren’t forcing you to use their service for your searching. It’s not how I’d conduct a business with hopes of repeat customers, but it sure doesn’t surprise me.
ps: google is forcing ads and other targeted content on you to make up for that free service too. god only knows what else they’re doing with your demo info…
-mike
I have always wondered if this tatic was being done or attempted, thanks for exposing this, lets hope that godaddy doesn’t go that way.
THAT is B.S. they should not be able to do that… all this does is increase the barrier of entry for the little guys!!!!!
Is there anything we can do to stop them? Michael, you have a law degree… can anything be done?
-Ryan
I believe I was a “victim” of this when I registered my original domain woodmarvels.com, I searched for both singular and plural but only bought the plural. The next day, I decided that hey… I should buy the singular as well and it was registered by a third party somewhere. Ironically, after reading about this on Webmasters World, I searched and the singular domain was yet again available.
ICANN is as effective controlling the internet as a 90 year old man is with impotence. The root of these “net problems” like kiting, front-loading etc can all be traced back to their absolute lack of leadership… they couldn’t be any more useless – time to send them their pink papers and rethink some basic fundamentals.
Jon
http://buzvia.com – Share Influence
This amazes me…
They deserve all the bad press that they can be given
i definitely think the tech community should boycott network solutions. They have acted anti-consumer for years.
I have had so many bad experiences with them and I only have a handful of domains with them.
I have hundreds with Godaddy and have very few negative experiences.
this is very horrible. it makes me want to set up a bot that just searches domain names 24 hours a day to F with them… really, i can’t believe it.
I use netsol.com to search for domains all the time and I always have this funny feeling when i do it that someone is watching… now the feeling is justified. wow.
You’ll start seeing the community create little bots to flood them with bogus requests.
And it seems for good measure they block you from doing a whois lookup after you do a domain name search!
I searched for the domain name at NS and then used the godaddy whois search.
——————————————–
Welcome to the Network Solutions Registrar WHOIS Server.
The IP address from which you have visited the Network Solutions Registrar WHOIS
database is contained within a list of IP addresses that may have failed
to abide by Network Solutions’ WHOIS policy. Failure to abide by this policy can
adversely impact our systems and servers, preventing the processing of
other WHOIS requests.
To see the Network Solutions WHOIS Policy, click on or copy and paste the following
URL into your browser:
http://www.netw...ois/index.jhtml
If you feel that you have received this message in error, please contact us at:
whoisquery@networksolutions.com and include the following information:
What a dirty business. I hate researching website domains only to find they are stagnant pages with the big Network Solutions logo at the top.
Thanks for the heads up on Domain Registrations. I also think its funny when I search on Register they say they will give me time to come back and get the domain I just searched for….in the mean time I go over to GoDaddy with Crcard in hand saving 60%.
Isn’t this considered cybersquatting and therefore we all should be protected under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act?
I’d like to see a guest author come to TC and discuss this sort of behavior. As well as a review of Web Hosts/Domain Registers and their behavior; good, bad and ugly. I’m about to go shopping for a Web Host and I would love to here some feedback on your recommendations.
WOW…
WOW …
WOW …..
IS THERE ANYTHING PEOPLE WOULD NOT DO FOR A BUCK or 35
You shouldn’t have given these any coverage. Now their search engine rank will go up for queries for domain name search. I never even heard of them before you wrote about it.
@30
I agree…not that I have not heard of them but it’s as if we all are being forced to transact with them. I say just take the domain search and business elsewhere.
At this rate they will soun windup in the DEADPOOL
Is there any legal recourse against it?
It looks like the fake registrations have already begun …
fuck-you-netsol.com was registered two days ago and delegated to RESERVEDDOMAINNAME.COM
I was “victimized” by NetworkSolutions when I purchased my first 30 domains (at the time, I was new to the industry, and I thought they were the only game in town. Ya, I was a sucker!)
In short … I hate NetworkSolutions.
Since then, I’ve *transfered* all of those domains to GoDaddy, and I’ve subsequently purchased *several thousand more* through GoDaddy instead.
(Um … don’t worry, I’m NOT SQUATTING on them! I’m actually making them available to thousands of people who otherwise would not have a really cool domain name.)
Sneaky. If eNom and GD started doing this too, could domain registrations grind to a halt?
The thing is not to do a search on their site otherwise it means waiting for five days to get that domain name.
Now I know where to avoid searching.
Exactly why I would use a site like http://www.Swif...omainSearch.com to research and find domain names before I head out to a regsitrar to actually buy them.
@38 nice spam
Try internic’s own whois – http://www.inte....net/whois.html
…otherwise, the command line whois in linux
I was happy as hell when I finally got my domains off of NS. Pain or no pain with the process (and it was painful), once there were clear alternatives to NS I was out of there and I couldn’t be happier.
This? This is off the charts.
Thanks for the information, I’ll switch everything over to go daddy – even my webhosting.
It is a dirty tactic. I will not use network solution in the futher.
—
http://www.bywifi.com — Mobile Transcoding of Videos and Web Pages for Mobile Phone and PDA
We had similar bad experience with a company called UltraRPM aka Metapredict
A domain name was gone after doing a search, but it was claimed they used spyware to detect your search etc
Michael, that’s excellent that you wrote something about this. This is only one more ridiculous practice by Netsol which does nothing but indicate that they think domain registrants are idiots. They are the most inconvenient, customer-unfriendly registrants when it comes to using their interface… In addition to this heir approach to business includes forcing you to go through about 10 screens just to register a domain so that they can keep asking you if you need stuff that you know you don’t need or want. Every time. For years now. Like clockwork. Other REAL features such as forwarding/masking, etc. are free with companies like GoDaddy, but Netsol charges for them. GoDaddy (and its Wild West affiliates) have ten times more domains of mine than Netsol for those reasons.
Rob
http://www.bitrealty.com
@8, others
i’m not seeing this effect… Searched for “netsolisapieceofbunk.com” on Netsol and its still available at Gotdaddy as well.
What am I missing here??
I always thought whois.sc/domaintools could make a killing by using this strategy.
Whats with the domain registration companies?
NetSol clearly doesn’t get it… they haven’t gotten it or been competent whatsoever since they lost their monopoloy rights. They’re management is way to focused on near-term revenue ($35/year registration, gimics like above) instead of running a legit company. You’d think its pretty clear these days please your customers, be open, have a clean/legit service, and you can do very well (google, FB, etc).
GoDaddy is ok… but you’re still bombarded like hell with ads (usually very sex related ads) and their interface is clunky. Plus why would GoDaddy own this domain?? Mrgodaddyfucksthegodaddygirl.com ?? Whois shows its been owned by them since feb-2005. Wait, isn’t that when the big scandalous commercial came out?
@DavidEzra
WTF is this http://david.lo...esbaseball.com/
Network Solutions is a true piece of crap company. This is the scam they pulled with a client of mine. He had registered his company’s domain with register.com, who was also doing the DNS for his website. Network Solutions sent him a “renewal notice” which he paid. By paying, it transferred the domain from Register to Network Solutions. The side effect was they also took the DNS servers and pointed them to their BS parking page. It took several days to get it fixed and set back to Register – and it was only persistent support folks at register that got it back without weeks of faxing notarized legal documents. This was years a go and still pisses me off. I’d like to punch some random employee at network solutions for working for those assclowns.
Check out the picture of the douchebag CEO “Champ” Mitchell. http://about-ne....com/letter.php
hey Champ, f-u and your crap company.
This crap should be illegal. What a bunch of crooks. Yes, there are other companies in America that are crooked like another poster said (companies like credit card companies and rebate scams) but this doesn’t make it right.
So I use GoDaddy for registering the domain and SliceHost for my VPS needs.
cbmeeks