Contact me if you need another victim for class action or any other legal action. Email me at: ggconcrete@gmail.com

Everyone go there and start “searching” for domain names. If they purchase these names can they keep up with the mass internet population? Do they have infinate money? Make the bitches go broke by overkill.

Why?

Because the Network Solutions scums bought it. BUT I could “buy it” from Network Solutions for a price higher than had I bought it the night before.

Scum Bags!

In hindsight, I should have checked something less important than a domain name that someone might actually want….but at least it wasnt a name that I myself would have wanted!!!!!

(Oh, and…um….sorry about your domain name being snatched by Network Solutions dad)

You have CONTROL over what domains another company registers.

Since the community thinks that this practice is a stinker, I declare a contest to come up with the best domain ’searching’ script on network solutions. Random alpha-numeric characters are good.
Bonus points for keeping track of the ’searched’ domains and ‘researching’ every 5 days

NoWayToGoThereHaHa

domain. The .com, .net, and .org were all available. I went to Network Solutions a few minutes later and performed a search for the same domains — as expected, the .com, .net, and .org were available. A few minutes later I went back to Dotster in a different tab of my browser and performed the same search I had performed earlier and it is true — in this search, not even 5-10 minutes later, the NoWayToGoThereHaHa.com was no longer available but I could “Make an offer” on it. I click on the “Make an offer” link and that takes me to http://www.sedo.com, a domain name broker.

Interestingly, I went back to Network Solutions via a new tab and repeated the search — the domain name for .com is still available via Network Solutions.

It appears that they are doing a couple of things. First, they are reserving a domain that was searched on immediately such that you can only get that domain name via Network Solutions. Second, it appears that (in my case) any domain that is already “registered” gets the “Make an offer” link which points off to sedo.com. The sedo.com and other domain name brokers may be aware of way Network Solutions reserves searched domain names — what these domain name brokers do then is they check and see if Network Solutions has reserved the name because someone did a search on it and then they offer people a way to “buy” the domain by making an offer, where the minimum offer is $200. If you make an offer of $200 (or more), I suspect the broker will go and buy the domain name from Network Solutions at the cheap rate, and then transfer it to you — they keep the difference between your bid and what they paid Network Solutions.

Interestingly, a whois search on sedo.com (eventually) turned up a connection to tucows.com, but I didn’t pursue it further.

Someone needs to follow the trail of money and company ownerships (who owns tucows.com, for example?).

/s.

Thanks, JB

This story has been submitted to Stirrdup. Your support can help it become hot….

I agree that Network Solutions’ business plan to “reserve” all available name search queries was questionable from an ethics and business point of view. I, for one, am surprised that Network Solutions and ICANN have been sued in a class action format.

I originally posted about potential consumer protection liability related to NSI’s reserve policy here, but NSI quickly modified it’s policy and provided adequate notice on its web site in order to inform consumers that it would be reserving searched domains. That post is found here. 

Consumer protection lawsuits are all about misrepresentation and “deception.”; Once Network Solutions posted notice on its web site that it would be engaging in this particular business practice, it is hard to imagine how consumers would argue they were “deceived.”

As far as ICANN liability, the only possibility is an argument that Network Solutions was violating the accreditation agreement with ICANN and ICANN failed to follow-up on that known violation. However, I have not seen any good analysis on the Internet which suggests that a violation of policy did occur.

You could create ones that nobody else will want, such as AAAAAAAAAAAA1.com and just count up from there.

Just a thought.

“A racketeering enterprise investigation may be initiated when facts or circumstances reasonably indicate that two or more persons are engaged in a continuing course of conduct for the purpose of obtaining monetary or commercial gains or profits wholly or in part through racketeering activity. The standard of “reasonable indication” is identical to that governing the initiation of a general crime investigation under Part II.”

A class action lawsuit is great… for the lawyers.
An FBI Racketeering Investigation, charges and a trial is what is needed to end this practice once and for all. In My (I am not a lawyer, but a concerned Netizen) Opinion.

classactionshurt.com

and

waittillyouseetheattorneysfees.com

Class actions allow the plaintiffs to request attorney’s fees from a losing defendant. If it comes to that (they will probably fight certification of the class) they will get hit, but big.