February 25, 2008

Network Solutions, ICANN Sued Over Domain Front Running

Duncan Riley

47 comments »

Network Solutions and ICANN are being sued over the “front running” domain registration practices that we covered last month.

“Network Solutions has forced millions of people to buy Internet domain names from them instead of cheaper competitors through a scheme that’s netted the firm millions of dollars,” according to the federal class action lawsuit filed by Kabateck Brown Kellner. The suit also alleges ICANN is guilty by association as its policies allow Network Solutions to front run.

For those not familiar with the practice, Network Solutions (and some other registrars) lock up domain names as soon as a user searches for them, taking them off the market and forcing users to use their service to register the name they want.

Kabateck Brown Kellner give this example:

“Imagine if you asked a car dealer if they had a black convertible and were then forced to buy the car from them. Would you get a good deal? Each time someone asks Network Solutions about a domain name, the firm creates a monopoly for itself, forcing consumers to pay the price they demand.”

It was not clear what amount, if any is being asked for as damages in the suit, however Kabateck Brown Kellner boast at the end of their release:

Kabateck Brown Kellner is one of the nation’s foremost consumer law firms. Its clients have won more than $750 million against Google, Yahoo!,
Farmer’s Insurance, Eli Lilly and others. As a plaintiff’s-only firm, Kabateck Brown Kellner is always on the consumers’ side.

(via Network World)

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 4:56 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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Xinil

February 25th, 2008 at 4:59 pm

And that’s why I never check domain names using Network Solutions.
Marzipan from Toledo

February 25th, 2008 at 4:59 pm

Network Solutions suck so bad. There are all sorts of ICANN procedures they need to follow (like allowing people to inquire if WHOIS info is not accurate) yet they choose not to.

They need to get wiped out
Daniel Larsson

February 25th, 2008 at 5:07 pm

Network solutions has and always will be a bunch of crooks, I have NEVER used them and advise anyone I meet against having anything to do with them!
Alex Loddengaard

February 25th, 2008 at 5:15 pm

I learned about their shady practices the hard way - they stole a few of my domains. Bullshit.
Hendra

February 25th, 2008 at 5:20 pm

My very first domain was registered with them, with these “budget” registrant out there, I wonder if anyone still do business with them nowadays.
EH

February 25th, 2008 at 5:37 pm

WTF “consumer law” did they sue GOOG for?
EH

February 25th, 2008 at 5:40 pm

I’d rather they pursue things like this than click fraud.
BoycottNetworkSolutions.com

February 25th, 2008 at 5:41 pm

I was so disgusted by their crooked scheme that I set up a domain with NS called BoycottNetworkSolutions.com.

I currently have it pointed to the 1st TC article, but would be happy to point it anywhere it will affect them most. They are scum.

Contact me at Info@DomainsForeLease.com
lawrence

February 25th, 2008 at 5:56 pm

Network Solutions IS fishy, lol

i tried out this scenario…i typed in businessdog123.com on NS - it’s available.

then i typed in the same domain at Register.com, it’s not available - but it gives you the option to make a best offer…with a $200 minimum bid!!

an instant 6X+ premium
Vinay

February 25th, 2008 at 6:04 pm

Every corporate has crap-rate behind them! This is a bad bad practice! I am gonna try searching for “NetworkSolutionsSuck.com”, lets see if they grab them !! LoL!
Humble Pie

February 25th, 2008 at 6:36 pm

W00T!
Matt

February 25th, 2008 at 6:44 pm

awesome…. go KBK! finally some action on this front, right?
Tippo

February 25th, 2008 at 7:00 pm

Its not a good practice given how hard it is sometimes to come up with a good domain name.
Neto

February 25th, 2008 at 7:08 pm

Nice, i hope they disappear and never reappear, it is just bad business practice.
Alex

February 25th, 2008 at 7:23 pm

When I first heard of this practice a few months back I thought I was mis-reading the article. Then of course I proceeded to look up a few domains and found that indeed these scumbags were front running.
Funny how last month they “replaced”the CEO but the CEO remains the Chairman of the company. It’s fair to say these scumbags knew that this lawsuit was coming and are attempting to soften the blow with “we are taking steps in the right direction”

SCUMBAGS!!!!!
Rami

February 25th, 2008 at 7:25 pm

They deserve it so badly!!!!!!!
wooot wooot
lolita

February 25th, 2008 at 7:45 pm

They’re sleazy all the way around. I used their services a few months. Their web account interface is entirely ads and upsells. It’s extremely difficult to check or configure your account, settings, or billing - all primary messaging is for other services you can buy.
play trivia

February 25th, 2008 at 8:38 pm

Awesome news. I am one of many victims.
Ilan

February 25th, 2008 at 8:49 pm

Network Solutions and Godaddy Suck Pretty Bad, and I mean really bad.
I hate their guts.

I currently use Moniker, they are excellent.

and tools for checking domains:
http://www.AjaxWhois.com
http://www.makewords.com
http://www.nameboy.com
http://instantdomainsearch.com
dEEPS

February 25th, 2008 at 8:53 pm

I didnt know this! Thanks, i now know where not to look for domains!
Don

February 25th, 2008 at 9:18 pm

I hope they get taken for a lot. Talk about sleazy.
Brian Olson

February 25th, 2008 at 9:43 pm

NS just pulled this exact prank on me last night. Like others, I made the big mistake of using their site (as a “second opinion” to internic.net) to confirm a domain was available. I then immediately (and apparently successfully) registered it at another registrar–only to receive a “failed to register” email a few minutes later.
I called NS support who confirmed they did in fact place my domain in a “DNS reservation table” in response to my lookup. I pressed the issue, and after much explaining about why I was choosing another registrar, they “graciously” deleted it–and informed me it wouldn’t become available again for 6-8 hours. An hour later I re-registered it successfully. I was up all night–what a hassle! Their rep claimed they only do this for .com domains.
LACJ

February 25th, 2008 at 11:19 pm

They are still doing it. I just checked with:

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.
Town Crier

February 26th, 2008 at 12:57 am

“Front Running”?? Call it what it is… (domain name) EXTORTION! Conducted by a commercial enterprise; which makes it RACKETEERING, across state lines, which makes it a federal offense covered by the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C. Section 1961.

“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.
The Ace of Spades that doesn’t hide in a hole

February 26th, 2008 at 7:42 am

I think this is the only reason Netsol is still in business, cut off this supply Kabateck Brown Kellner
Peter

February 26th, 2008 at 8:26 am

This happened to me when checking for a domain using DreamHost. Next day it was registered by someone else! They should investigate other registrars too.
cost

February 26th, 2008 at 9:12 am

Does it cost Network Solutions to register these domains that people are searching for? If so, I’d suggest people create scripts that constantly look up domain names.

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

Just a thought.
Enrico S.

February 26th, 2008 at 10:03 am

click on the above link to see an analysis of the issues.

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.
Bill

February 26th, 2008 at 10:38 am

cost, that is the dumbest post in the world… think before you post, they would be out of business in 2 days if they were actually registering them. There is a 4 day period which they can hold domains… a policy which ICANN has set up. So ICANN and other registrars are responsible for the same tactics. It’s not just one company, it’s a whole set of standards that needs to come under fire here… starting with ICANN for allowing this.
Joe Blow

February 26th, 2008 at 12:57 pm

How do I get on this law suite? I have used NetSol to check domain names and twice have found it very odd that a domain name that was free for years got tied up only a day or two after I checked them? I know I’m in sync with what’s going in the market–but I’m not THAT good.

Thanks, JB
Scott G

February 26th, 2008 at 1:16 pm

So I put it to the test. I went to Dotster and search for the

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.
Stig Nordas

February 26th, 2008 at 1:24 pm

Serves them right. Its bad enough they got the entire domain market handed to them on a silver platter back in 95, but this dirty-low-down practice is going to serve as a strong lesson for the scum bags who practice it. There are many other players in the ‘Front Running’ game. Their time is up!
oleg m

February 26th, 2008 at 3:19 pm

Do you guys not see that this problem is really an opportunity in disguise?

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
kevin

February 26th, 2008 at 5:20 pm

Yea, a few weeks ago I read about NS doing this crap. So what to do? Try it, see if it’s really true of course….so I searched for a domain name that only my dad would want (www.his name.com) and it was available. So I waited until the next day, and sure enough that name was no longer available.

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)
Pink

March 1st, 2008 at 3:53 pm

Simple solution.

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.
Bill

March 11th, 2008 at 4:31 pm

I set up http://www.netsolfrontrunning.com to make folks aware of Net Sol reserving domains when you search for them on NetworkSolutions.com. I searched for a domain there and had to wait 5 days to get it somewhere else.
Sue

March 17th, 2008 at 10:41 pm

This is fantastic! This front running is happening to everyone including ME and it happened on Register.com - who sold MY domain name (that I was mulling over for a day or 2 before buying) it to Afternic - a search of Whois reveals the purchaser is a company called “Basic Fusion” but they are in cahoots with Regsiter.com because they ONLY offer bulk domain name registration - you have to already own at least 5,000 domain names to be eligible to buy it. IT’s CALLED RACKETEERING AND I’m getting a lawyer on this!
Jac

March 19th, 2008 at 9:47 am

NS changed the verbage on their website. Apparently this is now a “feature” that they offer - how convenient! What a bunch of BS.
Sue Taylor

March 24th, 2008 at 5:06 pm

If anyone needs another witness, just ask me. I just got scammed by NetSol. They claim to have no affiliation with new.net , basicfusion.com , or the Vendare Group who own the latter two. When I spoke with gregg006 at Network Solutions, he gave me the email contact for Venare Group. The email is netsol-0107@netblue.com. Notice anything fishy? I asked him why their email would begin with ‘netsol’ if they have no affiliation with NetSol? Make sense? Basic Fusion is a taster of the most dirty sort. Check this out: http://www.tastereports.com/re.....ar_id=187. Network Solutions is just plain nasty and should not be trusted for anything at all. The same day I registered goodguysconcrete.com at 1and1.com, these pukes also registered our name. This is the name of our registered corporation. Where do they get off using our corporate name without permission?

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