Moving Back to Network Solutions, for Domain Name Registrations

I haven’t checked out Network Solutions’ web site (http://www.nsi.com) in ages, but for some reason today, I decided to check it out, and daaaank, their site looks good. Its color scheme and layout is just marvelously perfect. Plus, its pricing for domain name registration has gone lower.

(UPDATE: September 4, 2009 – 5:08 PM EST) – Oops, I might have been mistaken, because when I checked out the NSI site today, September 4, 2009, their registration fee per each new .com domain name is $34.99, which freakin’ high compare to GoDaddy.com and 1and1.com, and many other Registrars, who charge no more than $10 per each new .com domain name.)

Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI), was the original registrar and has held a monopoly over the .com and basically the .org and .net TLD domain registration as initially authorized by the U.S. government, when the registrations for the domain names were made available for commercial registration and general use. Only after Register.com lobbied and was granted permission to become the second TLD registrar. Not sure whatever happened to Register.com, deadpooled?

However, NSI was later acquired by VeriSign, which ended up just making it a mess, and awfully lowsy. Kept its domain pricing awfully high and awful to manage, and that paved a way for GoDaddy.com, and other upcoming registrars to take over the leadership from NSI.

I used to have hundreds of domain names registered under NSI, but since VeriSign took over the control of NSI and messed it up, like most other domain name owners, we migrated to other registrars. For me, I moved all my domains to GoDaddy.com.

A few years ago, VeriSign sold NSI to a private equity firm, and I wasn’t sure about the future of NSI, I thought that was the end of it, but when I stumbled back on to its web site today, I really like what I see. Their site looks good and their domain pricing is as low as GoDaddy.com (sorry, but check my updated inserts above).

I will now move all my domains back to NSI, because as you can read from my previous posts on here about GoDaddy.com, I have not been a happy camper with GoDaddy.com.

I recommend NSI for domain name registration to anyone, anywhere.

(Except that they charge $12 a year per domain name forwarding, which sucks my breath out, because most Registrars don’t charge fees for domain forwarding any more.)

Filed under: domains , domain names, GoDaddy, domain registration, registrar, Network Solutions, Register.com

WP.com, Washington Post or WordPress?

Most large companies have already snapped domain names that either directly or indirectly reflect their company or brand names.

I never thought that giant publishing companies such as The Washington Post would not have done the same thing with the domain, WP.com.

To my surprise today, I only stumbled upon WP.com, as was displayed on the WordPress Homepage platform, yes, as you can see, I use WordPress.com for my blog, but who would have guessed that WordPress.com actualy owns the domain WP.com, and not The Washington Post?

So, that means if I want to go to The Washington Post web site, I have to type in washingtonpost.com? That’s too long. How about The New York Times, at least they own NYT.com, that makes it easy.

If you are large company as you claim to be, get the domain, all of the domain names, that either directly or indirectly reflect your company name or brand name. Make it easier for us, the consumers, to easily find you.

Filed under: domains , company names, domain names, Internet, Washington Post, Wordpress

Latest Update: GoDaddy.com’s Shady and Unethical Domain Names’ Renewal Process

The following is my latest update on my two previous posts regarding GoDaddy.com’s possible unethical European domain name expiration and renewal procedures.

Since my last update here, I have had numerous email exchanges with an executive from GoDaddy.com, trying to amicably negotiate with GoDaddy.com in regard to their European domain name unethical expiration, renewal, and cancellation procedure. And, after numerous email exchanges, GoDaddy.com finally agreed to give me back, two of my domain names, Rentersq.co.uk, and Tipmart.co.uk, by renewing them for additional two years at no cost to me. But there are other .DE domain names that I have lost because of their renewal procedure.

The way GoDaddy.com registers and manages European domain names, such as .co.uk, .de, etc., it’s like having a retail store that you own and manage, and your livelihood depends on your retail store’s revenue. However, your retail store’s landlord, who after you’ve signed a one-year lease, always comes to your store, once a year, at least 60 – 90 days before the end of your lease agreement, asking you to pay for the lease term, and if you decide to wait until the actual due date of your lease agreement, then your landlord instantly locks up your retail store, closes it down, and redirects your customers to the landlord’s store elsewhere, leaving you to lose business as your customers are redirected elsewhere.

And, that’s exactly how GoDaddy.com operates when coming to registering and managing the European domain names as I have it explained here. Also, you may want to read here what other customers are saying about similar problem with GoDaddy.com.

I have written to GoDaddy.com several times, but with no amicable solution. And some of my requests are for GoDaddy;

- To instantly change its policies and procedures for its European domain names’ expiration procedures, invoicing and renewal process, and not to ever redirect expiring domain names for any customer to the GoDaddy’s parking pages with paid advertisement.

- To stop cancelling domain names from its customers account prior to the actual expiration dates.

- To adopt similar industry domain name expiration and renewal standard such as that of Yahoo! Domains’ expiration and renewal procedure, that GoDaddy must only cancel any domain name from any user’s account only after the actual expiration due date. And if for any reason whatsoever, that GoDaddy.com is unable to do so, then it must stop registering European domain names, directly or indirectly.

- Not to deactivate, cancel and then forward or redirect any expiring or expired domain names for any customer to any of the GoDaddy’s parking page with or without any paid and or sponsored advertisement.

- To publicly announce, by whatever form of written public announcement, such as a press release or posting on GoDaddy’s official blog, that GoDaddy.com has agreed to make changes to GoDaddy’s Universal Terms of Services in regard to its expiration, invoicing, and renewal procedures for the European Domain Names, and that GoDaddy will no longer cancel and redirect expiring or expired domain names to GoDaddy’s parking pages with paid or sponsored advertisement.

- To offer a discount price of $9.99 per each European Domain name for any and all of GoDaddy’s past and current customers, who may want to purchase any new European domain name through GoDaddy.com.

I have a long list and I am still collecting names of those, anyone, past or current customer of GoDaddy.com, who have been affected by GoDaddy.com’s European Domain Names’ expiration and renewal procedure as explained above for a possible class action against GoDaddy.com. So, please get in touch with me the soonest.

Filed under: Apple, GoDaddy, Internet, Web 2.0, adsense, advertising, adword, article, blog this, domains, news, technology , BBB, cheat, domain names, domain registration, domains, ethics, fraud, GoDaddy, GoDaddy renewal, GoDaddy.com, gTLDs, ICANN, invoicing, renewal, Techcrunch, unethical

Latest Update: GoDaddy.com’s Shady and Unethical Domain Names’ Renewal Process

I recently wrote about how unhappy I am about GoDaddy.com’s possibly shady and unethical domain name expiration procedure. And, today, I received an email from someone ,named, Alon, from The Office of the President at GoDaddy.com, who wants to talk to me about my concern.

The following is the email copy I received from him;

Go Daddy – concerns about domain expiration procedures

Friday, January 2, 2009 3:38 PM

From: “**********@godaddy.com” *************@godaddy.com

To: simon@rentersq.com

Dear Mr. Kapenda,

I recently came across an article you posted to your blog regarding Go Daddy’s domain name expiration procedures:

http://princesimon.wordpress.com/2008/12/30/godaddycoms-shady-and-unethical-domain-names-renewal-process/

Specifically, you stated that Go Daddy parks domain names approximately 40 days prior to expiration if not renewed. I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak with you about your concerns because I can assure you that Go Daddy does not normally do this. I’d like to learn more about your experience to see if anything occurred that should not have or if there is simply some confusion that needs to be cleared up.

If you can find a moment, please contact me by phone at your earliest convenience. Of course, I’d be happy to call you, if you’d prefer; just provide a phone number and let me know when would be a good time to call. If you’re unable to speak by phone, please respond via email and let me know at least one domain name that you believe was handled this way so that I can investigate.

If you have any other concerns or questions, please also feel free to contact me.

Regards,

Alon
Twitter: GoDaddy*****
G*********@GoDaddy.com
Office of the President, GoDaddy.com
10am – 7pm, US Mountain Standard Time
(480) 505-8828 Phone
(480) 275-3975 Fax

I emailed him back, telling him that I will call him early next week.

I appreciate the fact that GoDaddy contacted me the soonest I posted that blog. I give them credit for that, but the fact is, I am not happy how they do business when coming to their domain name expiration procedure.

My request is for GoDaddy to change the way they do business, in regard to their expiration processing procedure, because it’s not just hurting me, it’s probably hurting everyone who registers domain names with GoDaddy.com.

I will keep posting here any and all the updates on this subject matter.

Example of one my domains that are expiring soon, and have already been forwarded to GoDaddy’s parking page with paid ads, is Tipmart.co.uk (www.tipmart.co.uk). This domain expires on January 9, 2009, but since mid November 2008, this domain has been redirected from my web site; Tipmart.com, to GoDaddy’s parking page. I have had several domain names, including .com’s, which GoDaddy has done the same thing, and I have lost several of them as explained in my previous post.

Stumble It!

Filed under: GoDaddy, Web 2.0, adsense, advertising, adword, blog this, branding, business, domains, technology , domain, domain names, domain registration, domains fraud, GoDaddy, registration

GoDaddy.com’s Shady and Unethical Domain Names’ Renewal Process

If you own a domain that you’ve registered through GoDaddy.com, then you’ve probably been invoiced at least 60 days prior to the actual expiration due date of your domain name. They usually send you two or three more invoice reminders thereafter, inviting you to renew your domain.

However, if you fail to renew your domain per invoice at about 40 days prior to the actual due date of the expiration, then GoDaddy simply cancels your domain, and you can no longer renew it, and then GoDaddy immediately forwards it to GoDaddy’s own parking page with paid advertisement.

That’s nearly 40 days prior to the actual due date of the expiration of your domain name. In doing this, GoDaddy does two things; they redirect your site traffic to their own parking page, and then capitalize from your traffic from the paid ads on their parking page.

Is this really an ethical business practice? Even if their Universal Terms of Service dictates so, does that really emphasize good business ethic? How about ICANN’s gTLDs terms of service for registrars’ business practice? Terms are just written terms, which can be changed and revised at any time to suit the targeted consumers. So, GoDaddy can definitely revise their universal terms of service, if they want to, except that they have purposely set their domain names’ renewal process in order to cheat and steal from us, the consumers.

Yahoo Domains serves me the best. They invoice me several days prior to the due date of my domains’ expiration, and then they follow up with a few reminders, at least two or three more, so as GoDaddy.com, but Yahoo does not deactivate the expired domain names for another week, and then they give me another chance to renew my deactivated domain, before they completely cancel it. And when they simply cancel the domain, they don’t forward or redirect it to their parking page with paid ads, unlike GoDaddy.com.

Last week, TechCrunch published an article on how GoDaddy warehouses expired domain names, read the article here, but a few days later, after the community negatively reacted to their shady tactics, GoDaddy immediately closed down their business division which was tasked to hide their unethical domain name warehousing.

For years, I have been registering and managing my domains through Network Solutions, but after it was sold to VeriSign, I started not liking their service, so I moved my domains to Yahoo! Domains, but there are certain tools in Yahoo! Domains’ Control Panel that I didn’t like, such as using dedicated server hosting through another hosting company, other than Yahoo!, so I moved some of them to GoDaddy.com. I have also tried Netfirms and Register.com, but I didn’t like their control panel. I however still like GoDaddy’s CP, but I severly detest their renewal process. There just don’t seem to be another better registrar out there right now, other than GoDaddy.com.

In the process, I have lost many domains through GoDaddy because of this shady invoicing practice, and I have three more domains expiring today and in January 2009, and I am not going to renew them, just because.

What I want to do is to hear from anyone who has experienced and doesn’t like the way GoDaddy does business in terms of invoicing, deactivating domain names prior to expiration dates, and then redirecting them to their parking page with paid ads.

I am talking to a lawyer about this, and I want to have a few more people, anyone, who may have experienced this shameful, unethical, and shady business by GoDaddy. So, if you have experienced the same problem with GoDaddy.com, please email me the soonest at simon@rentersq.com. I am going to try to do something about this, but I need to compile a large file.

Filed under: GoDaddy, Internet, adsense, advertising, blog this, branding, domains, technology , BBB, cheat, domain names, domain registration, domains, ethics, fraud, GoDaddy, GoDaddy renewal, gTLDs, ICANN, invoicing, renewal, Techcrunch, unethical

Domain Names: Business.com and America.com

America.com – a great domain name currently under-utilized. So much potential for this domain, but so little creative talent shown by the current owners. They are using it for the bulletin boards (forums)?

Last time I checked a few years ago, this domain was listed for sale at GreatDomains.com for $30 million, but I am not sure if it ever had a buyer.

Same goes with the domain, Business.com. Why aren’t the owners of these domains using them to their fullest potential, hmm, lack of inventive minds may be?

Business.com was bought for about $360 million, but what a waste so far!

Filed under: Blogroll, Internet, adsense, advertising, adword, blog this, branding, business, economy, entertainment, entrepreneur, networking, social, startup, technology , America.com, business.com, domain names, domains, invention, marketplace