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The gold rush for
domain names is presenting a real challenge as snake oil salespeople
rush to make a few easy bucks in this expanding real estate market.
Where once the sale of domain names was the exclusive property of
Network Solutions, there are now thousands of entrepreneurs in the
business. While this sudden expansion of registrars (not to mention
primary domains such as .info & .biz) has its costs, in most cases
domain names are now less expensive and more accessible than they were
when Network Solutions had a monopoly.
Unfortunately,
there are also downsides to having multiple registrars & resellers. The
competition for your domain name fees is reaching new lows as conmen
scan the
WHOIS directory for public information and then aggressively solicit
the listed contacts for re-registration, in some cases implying the
recipients were already their clients.
Subsidised prices
for domain names have been used by many companies to lure customers in
for web hosting and design work. Often the listed domain name prices are
only valid if the domain is hosted with a particular company. As long as
all of the prices for all services are listed there is nothing wrong
with this approach in our current economy. Whether a company spams you
after first buying a email list or pulling it from the Internet directly
doesn't much matter. It's just spam advertising (which has its own
problems).
A much more
serious problem is presented by those companies that either email or
call up directly and act as if you are already their client. In the last
week I've been called twice regarding one domain name which the agent on
the phone claimed was registered with Network Solutions (it never was).
She was calling to try to get me to purchase (through her company) the
.org and .net for the .com domain that I had registered.
I've also been
sent email requests from folks claiming that it was time for me to renew
my domain and 'If I just clicked on the url below' I could renew my
domain name. This was sent by a company I had never before heard and
certainly was not used to register the domain.
Many of these
companies want to play on the fears of the average domain owner. One
email I saw the other day said 'Some Domain Hosting Companies Do Not
Allow You To Register Until Your Domain Is About To Expire' or some such
line. Since webmasters invest a great deal of time into promoting their
domain names, they are valuable, however most companies will let you pay
for your domain up to 10 years in advance.
Hearing that there
are snakes slithering round the Internet is nothing new. This is just
one new concern. So what can you do to protect yourself and your
domains?
Before you register your domain
- Don't just
register with the cheapest company out there. Owning a domain and
setting it up so that you can use it are very different things.
- Take some time
to learn a bit more about the domain names, it is easy to get confused
by jargon.
After you register your domain
- Keep your
confirmation information in a safe place. This way you can look back
on it and confirm if the company that is contacting you is who they
say they are.
- Never follow an
unsolicited URL to 'update' your account.
- With either a
phone call or email, check to see that their web site is up and is
coming from who it claims to be coming from.
Internet
Registry director fined for bogus invoice scam
OTTAWA, June 30, 2004 - A Toronto man who targeted over 73,000 business
and non-profit organizations across Canada with a deceptive mail out for
the renewal of their Internet domain names has been sentenced to a
$40,000 fine and a five-year prohibition order. The sentence results
from an investigation by the Competition Bureau into Mr. Daniel Klemann
and Internet Registry of Canada (IROC) under the misleading
representations provisions of the Competition Act.
read article
"The
Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) wishes to advise dot-ca
registrants and the public at large that a Switzerland based
organization is mailing phony invoices to holders of dot-ca domain
names. Please click on
http://www.cira.ca/news-releases/50.html
for additional information. |
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