Check ANY domain for availability at Network Solutions = THEY register it, ALLEGEDLY!

In my semi-biased opinion, I'm going to agree with the other NetSol employee who posted on Webmasterworld that this is not true domain front running. I've been the victim of something like domain tasting --albeit temporary-- but what was more likely domain sniping I'd guess you'd call it. Someone grabbed by little brother's .com domain when it expired and wanted to sell it back to us at USD$990!! Instead, I shrugged it off as a loss and regged the .net. A week later, I was looking up the whois for the sniper again and whoa, the domain was available again!

Something global and big has to be done to prevent domain front running, tasting, sampling, sniping and all other unscrupulous domaining. The effect on the industry may not be huge yet, but it will get there. All registrars are getting complaints about the problem and will continue to do so, with accusations flying all over the place to rebuilding trust while still helping to curb predatory tasting.

So ask yourself which one you'd rather have happen -
* Search for a domain name on NetSol, which you probably know up front will be $34.95 (unless you purchase hosting). Find an available name and mull it over for a few hours to a few days and then purchase it for $34.95.
- or -
* Search for a domain name on NetSol, which you expect will be $34.95. However, after you mull it over, you find it's no longer available. A taster has purchased it and is wanting to sell it to you for $900+. Now you are upset, perhaps at the registrar.

Perhaps you send the guy in timbuktoo your $900 only to find out that you could've just waited. In my case at the time, I had no idea and I almost fell for it.

Put yourself in the registrar's shoes. At least Network Solutions is trying to do something about these problems. I think the improvements mentioned will be a very good step in the right direction.

*shrug* Just my two abe-lincolns. </flame on people>

 

Remarkable to hear about your real-life experience; drives home the point that we're not dealing with mere hypotheticals here.

 

Anyone who thinks this is a good idea should maybe consider what if every registrar did it? (or is netsol just special?)
Then we could have millions of domains shown as 'unavailable' when they should not have been. Don't underestimate the power of domain bots and programs...

 

So netsol stops the domain tasters by becoming one of them?
the solution is stupid, to say the least, and really outrageous for their clients.

If they want to protect their clients they should stop the sniffing of their ports as godaddy and others have done, so no one can find out others are searching for.

 

A lot of people seem to think Netsol and other registrars aren't aware of that.
They fully are.

They can do something about it on their end. What they have no control over
is what happens outside their servers such as their end-user's computers, the
ISPs, etc.

Or I guess people just don't care to understand what it might be like on their
side of the fence?

 

Not sure I understand what you're getting at, Dave. Network Solutions have been busy, busy snapping up domains people search for, according to them, to prevent others from grabbing the domains. The way I see it, it is akin to someone walking into a computer shop to check the availability of a particular machine and the computer shop then preventing the buyer from purchasing the same type of computer from anywhere else.

 

You missed the point.

If they really want to protect your domain search, sure they can "secure" the domain to make it available to you for later purchase.

But in this case, your searched domain is available for anyone to register.

So you search for MyAmazingDomain.com, and then it is "secured" by NetSol. You think, GREAT, what a customer service! But then another person found out that MyAmazingDomain.com has been registered by NetSol, and that domain is available for registration by anyone. So this person buys MyAmazingDomain.com from NetSol and when you inquire about it he wants to sell it to you for $99999999.......

Do you see the logic?

Also, NetSol only secures .com domains.
If they really want to protect their customers they should also secure .net .org etc...

And after you do a certain number of searches, they stop "protecting" your domains.

So, if you think NetSol is "protecting" your domain searches.... think again. Your domain is not protected because it is available for anyone to register.

This fact is plain obvious.

 

That's as good an analogy regarding the key point as I've seen anywhere in one paragraph.

 

A persistent problem nowadays is a user searches for a domain name, sees it's
available, but finds it taken before they checkout. Apparently that's what has
been happening with NetSol as well as their rep suggested.

Various registrars I know, especially the big guys, unfortunately get accused
of either selling their queries or registering the domain names themselves. All
of them have consistently stated they don't do either one, but they still can't
prevent that from happening.

Now PIR imposed a fee to discourage domain tasting for .org domain names.
VeriSign could very well do the same years ago until now, but...they haven't.

It's also been tackled at ICANN the past...2, 3 years? But until now, they've
not come up with a definite solution, and there won't be one anytime soon.

So until VeriSign does what PIR did, or ICANN sets a policy, what are all those
other registrars going to do to address this immediate problem? This is what
NetSol apparently is trying out under the circumstances.

Many people obviously don't approve of this. But with all current options that
are floating around, this one seems to at least beats tasters to the gate.

Now there are various constituencies at ICANN, one of which represents them
registrars. They're set to vote on the following (courtesy of a lawyer I know):

http://icannregistrars.org/Talk:ICANN_Registrars

It may interest you folks to know that the president of the RC is Mr. Nevett,
NetSol's VP for Policy, whose quote was posted here. Apparently he's been at
this for hours at end for months.

To borrow your analogy:

Let's try another scenario using that.

You walk into their shop and look for that particular machine. You find it, but
you don't buy it, and look into, say, computer shop A.

Computer shop A finds out what you want, then goes into NetSol's shop and
buys that particular machine you want. By then you decide to go back into
NetSol's shop, and it's gone.

You then find out Computer shop A bought it. They won't sell it to you, end of
story.

Isn't that the gist of what's happening? Essentially, the registrars have a real
and genuine problem with people searching multiple systems and later finding
out they can't get the domain name at all, and they're getting blamed.

However, it seems many people find it conveniently easier to believe they are
all up to no good without possibly looking at the bigger scheme of things. Not
that anyone's forced to, anyway.

You mean SSL? No registrar does that so far, but I'll admit I'm not that savvy.

The registrars can secure their systems all they want. What they can't do is
secure what happens outside of that.

If users have their computers laced with whatever stuff (e.g. browsers with a
lot of add-ons, downloading kiddie plugins for online games) that happen to be
feeding information to certain parties, obviously registrars have no control on
that.

The latter part you pointed out is a potential risk. But what if the original user
who searched it doesn't want it anymore, another one does, and can't take it
on the spot because it's "protected" for that original user?

To be clear, I'm not defending NetSol nor am I joining the lynch mob. However,
I'm trying to fully understand what's going on here and trying to offer ways to
look at it without possibly getting "emotional" about the whole thing.

Well, damned if you do, damned if you don't...

 

No, by "secured", I mean the domain is secured/locked by NetSol...
They say it is for customer's protection, but ANYONE can register the name (at NetSol of course).

The protection can be made for a short period, let's say 30 minutes -- that's plenty enough time to do checkout!

 

Don't know if this is true, but:

http://www.shashi.name/2008/01/clarifying-changes-in-network-solutions.html

Sheesh.

 

In that blog,
"I found out that we have started protecting all domain name searches at Network Solutions by holding the searched domains for our customers for a short period of time before releasing them."

He does not define what he means by "a short period of time"....
Is it 4 days? Or one hour?

 

It's 4 days. NetSol said it elsewhere, but they don't seem keen to say it often.

4 minutes would have been much closer to what it typically takes to complete the check out process.

 

Just tried it.

It takes even less than 4 minutes to complete the entire process.

And 4 days is exactly 144000% longer than 4 minutes.

 

These are some of the current headlines (not a representative sample):
-------------------------------------
Ars Technica, MA:
Network Solutions defends frontrunning—to stop frontrunners

PC World:
Network Solutions Stands by Name Policy

Register, UK:
Network Solutions games net domain biz

eWeek, NY:
Is Network Solutions Snatching Domain Names?

WebProNews:
Network Solutions Backs Down, A Little
-------------------------------------
If the story stays in the news, they'll have to back down all the way I think.

 

What happens to the domains after the 4-5 day Hijack that Netsol does?

I have a handful of domains that I have decided to buy, I searched them on Netsol, tried to register them on GoDaddy and I can't.

Has anyone had experience with this yet? Is there a chance that some other squatter will have access to the domains?

Can anyone verify that they are ever released from Netsol??

thanks!

 

Sorry to hear that, another real-life example...

In response to your question, they have to release them (unless they like the traffic so much they wish to pay for them and keep them, but they have denied they look at the traffic so that's hopefully not a likely scenario).

The maximum period they can keep them without payment is 5 days.

They've said they keep them for 4 days.

You may want to a look at the starting time of the registration - does it show the exact hour and minute?

That may be important if the script is programmed to drop them at the exact time the 4 days expire.

That's when the danger period would be most likely to start in terms of the real traffic tasters picking them up.

 

Well, obviously you can't given what NetSol is currently doing. Then again, it
rather doesn't make much sense to search via registrar A, then try to register
via registrar B, when you can do all that with the same registrar. (unless one
is that "cautious"...)

I'll let you know if the one I tested will be dropped. But I've a feeling it will.

 

no matter what network solutions does or says now, I will never ever do business with them

 

He doesn't have to be overly cautious to do that.

It's a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Always has been.