Tuesday

Network Solutions Being Sued

Make Money Online - Network Solutions Being Sued

The law firm Kabateck Brown Kellner, has filed a class action suit against Network Solutions and ICANN on behalf of plaintiff Chris McElroy and “all persons or entities in the United States who searched for the availability of a domain name through Network Solutions and subsequently registered that domain name through Network Solutions.”

It is claimed that Network Solutions 'bent the ICANN rules' to say the leat to their own financial advantage, and even ICANN condemned the practice. It is unclear whether ICANN distancing itself in this way will clear it of financial responsibility , but Network Solutions wil find it very difficult to make themselves look blameless.

A few weeks back Network Solutons embarked upon the practice of 'front-running' i.e. if you went to their site and entered a domain name you wanted to register then Network Solutions system immediately locked the name so that you could only register it with them. You could not go to another registrar and register it as it would show up as already taken. If you wante dit you had to go back to Network Solutions who had kindly 'reserved' it for you and they would also charge you $34.99 to register then name whereas other registrars typically charge around $9.

"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?" said Brian Kabateck, managing partner at Kabateck Brown Kellner.

All very shady and not designed to endear Network Solutions to domainers, but they are already hated by the domaining community anyway, the people they are interested in are newbies who have no idea how much a domain registration should cost.

It should also be pointed out that some unscrupulous individual swere deliberately typing in domain names such as Microsoftsoftwareiscarp.com just so that NS would reigster it and possibly find itself in a lawsuit with Microsoft, Google, Paypal, Ebay etc... apaprently many thousands of such names were 'registered' by NS in this way.

Well now it's all before the courts ! And about time too. I wonder if Netwrok Solutions still thinks their idea was such a good wheeze ?
Posted by Online Stock Trading at 14:05

3 comments:

  1. I totally missed this news earlier this week. That is just wrong!! I use network solutions all the time to domain name searches, yet I confess I never buy from them. They do have one of the easiest to use interfaces, I just end up buying the name through my host. Maybe if their hosting was more affordable, I would go through them. But do not force me to buy my domain just because I used the service you make seem like it is free.
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  2. Not sure what you are saying is wrong brackets. NS have been 'reserving' names by making it impossible for you to buy them elsewhere once you have searched for them on their site. That is why they are being sued. They don't even deny it, they simply say they are doing it for the customer's benefit. The only problem is it will cost you $34.99 if you use their service or $9 if you use someone else's service. Except of course that once you hav searched for a name on their site that name is blocked and you won't be able to buy it anywhere else. So the message is DON'T USE NETWORK SOLUTIONS TO SEARCH FOR DOMAIN NAMES.
    Nice bracket site by they way :-)
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  3. I was naively searching for two domain names availabilities at netsol and that's how I ended up. they said that they reserved the names to prevent front runners but in fact, they are the front runners themselves. the domain names were still available ONLY through their site, and no other registrar would be allow to register it for you after then. even if they claimed they would release the domain names in 4 days (if the names were not taken yet) but the original searcher would have to sit in front of the screen everyday to wait and check whether the domain names were really not taken by anybody! this is just the same like watching whether the kidnapper would not do anything harm to the victim. what's the difference then with the so called 'front running' they said in their policy?

    NEVER use Network Solution to search the availability of any domain names you want. because all they would do is making you impossible to buy them anywhere else, all you would have to do is to pay for their $34.99 ransom or you would lose the domain names.

    my registrar would only charge $9.45 for the same registration.

    thanks for putting this thing up. I hope more sues will come against Network Solution.
    ReplyDelete

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