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The Almighty Buck

Network Solutions Take 2 124

Posted by Hemos from the like-evil-dead-two dept.
sirkin writes "Washington Post Technews is reporting that VeriSign is resurrecting the Network Solutions name with a new subsidiary responsible for domain name registration. It seems so eerily familiar."
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Network Solutions Take 2 More

Network Solutions Take 2

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  • eh? (Score:2, Funny)

    by von Prufer ( 444647 )
    New subsidiary? That's funny, I could have sworn they sent me something about renewing through them...

    • Re:eh? (Score:1, Troll)

      by macdaddy357 ( 582412 )
      Will they be selling the new .cum top level domain for prOn?

    • Best quote: (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Greedo ( 304385 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @02:16PM (#5026510) Homepage Journal
      But in a 2002 survey of Internet address buyers, VeriSign found that 87 percent of them were familiar with the name "Network Solutions" and could identify it as a domain name seller ...

      Of course, they don't say why their name is recognizable. Long hold-times, bad support, dubious transfer-away procedures ...

      87% of Internet address buyers are also familiar with the phrase "bunch of crappy morons".

      • You'd think that Verisign would be better recognized than anyone regardless. After all, the email they sent me after I registered my domain name said, "At VeriSign, we've been building online identities since the Internet was introduced."

        I wonder whether Al Gore works there? ;-)
      • Don't get me started on their Transfer practices..

        You gota love Verisignas idea of a domain transfer approval request..

        It's a 2 page email thats 90% Please stay, here's a great deal!!.. nowhere in the subjet or the first 3/4 of the message does it mention anything about a request for approval.. only at the bottom in the fine print do you find the link to approve the transfer..

        OpenSRS (Tucows) [tucows.com] went out of their way to help me get away from Verisign and explain thier deceptive practices when it comes to domain transfers.

  • I thought the same thing. (Score:5, Funny)

    by kaosrain ( 543532 ) <root.kaosrain@com> on Monday January 06, 2003 @01:21PM (#5026169) Homepage
    It seems so eerily familiar.

    I thought the same thing, Hemos, but it actually isn't a dupe.

  • Verisign Subterfuge? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by johndiii ( 229824 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @01:22PM (#5026175) Journal
    Given that Verisign seems to charge 3x as much as other providers of the various services it offers, I wonder about their motivation here. Could this be an attempt to camouflage their image?

    • pricing for domain registrations (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Artifex ( 18308 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @01:54PM (#5026400) Journal
      Actually, if you want to transfer domains to Verisign/NetSol, they play the same game as Register.com and some others, of offering you a low first-year's transfer fee, then later renewals at higher than the bulk registration market's price.

      I recently switched a bunch of names from Melbourne IT to Register.com after getting a flyer in the mail offering a transfer ("plus remaining time on your old registration" for something like $15 per year, or cheaper if you get longer terms. Unfortunately, their normal quoted registrations are like $30 a year [register.com], so I wouldn't have done it otherwise. Verisign's offer was similar (no flyer needed but $19 a year for transfers) [networksolutions.com], but I was a bit leery of their bad rep regarding tying up domain names that expire, yanking registrations away anytime a big business hints that it wants a domain, etc., and I remembered the spam that I got from them to my hostmaster address when a domain was registered through them.

      For that matter, the agent of Melbourne IT that I went through had prices similar to Verisign's, but I had to order and renew each domain separately, which was a pain, and I figured, if another provider (in this case, Register.com) could do it cheaper and put them all in one place for me to manage, great. If they try to charge me the "regular" price next year, I'll move them all again; I'll risk a few placements with "bulk" registrars once I see that they've survived another year post-internet-burst-bubble.

      One thing I do miss about having my domains at the old Network Solutions: the ability to use a crypto key to manage the domains, and doing it all through email. Of course, the downside of using email for their plaintext password alternative was that anyone could see that password, and I'm guessing that email insecurity made forging transfers easier.

      • Re:pricing for domain registrations (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Jace of Fuse! ( 72042 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @02:07PM (#5026464) Homepage
        I manage three different accounts at Network Solutions and I can tell you it's nothing but a pain. I try to mess with it as little as possible because the system almost always craps out on me. If I change a password, the new password doesn't work anymore, and the old one seems to take some time before it kicks in.

        On top of that, don't ever let your information in their records become obsolete. If they have a wrong e-mail account for you, you can pretty much give up seeing any use out of that domain until they get around to giving a crap (which is never).

        It's been several months since I could get any replies or answers out of them regarding the information on one domain that I own, and it wille expire in April. If I don't have any control of it by then, I'll renew it with someone else that will give me some control over it.

        • Transfering from Network Solutions is a nightmare (Score:4, Insightful)

          by bleeeeck ( 190906 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @04:48PM (#5027774)
          it wille expire in April. If I don't have any control of it by then, I'll renew it with someone else that will give me some control over it

          If you're thinking about moving your domain somewhere else, I would recommend you start NOW. If you wait until a few weeks before the name expires, Network Solutions will screw you around untill it expires and you'll have to re-renew with Network Solutions before you can transfer it (true story).

          • Not only that, it takes a LONG time after a domain expires before it becomes available again to re-register. I wanted to buy a name that had expired (previously registered with Network Solutions), and it took almost eight months from the expiration date before they finally deleted it. When I e-mailed them to complain, they said that they "don't reveal their schedule of deleteing expired names" for security purposes.
          • I have to agree with this - make the transfer as soon as possible. My company has 13 domains registered, and I recently transferred every single one of them away from Network Solutions. Not only did Network Solutions not offer the services I wanted (such as being able to use a web-based interface to set up DNS entries on their own servers, a service that eNom.com offers for FREE), but their support was horrendous.

            I have found that their customer support department is set up entirely under the presumption that Network Solutions has not made any mistakes, and that the user simply needs help. That's fine when the user doesn't know how to do something, but it means that when Network Solutions screws up (and they can and do screw up BIG), nothing can be done by anyone that you are able to contact. The support staff isn't unwilling to help - they simply don't have the authority, or even the ability to fix things. All they can do is answer your questions.

            Case in point: Most registrars offer a service whereby you can electronically transfer a domain to another registrar. You tell the new registrar what you want to transfer, they make the request to the old registrar, and the old registrar emails the owner of the domain (you) with detail on how to authorize the transaction, along with a tracking number for the order so you can call support if need be.

            The problem with it is that it doesn't work correctly. Every time I've used this, Network Solutions entirely refuses to even acknowledge that the request has been made. I get no mail about it, not even the tracking number, which makes things even worse because the Network Solutions support staff can't even find your request in their system without it. This is not something you want to do in a rush. I've had to do this at least twice for every single domain I've tried to transfer. Eventually, it takes, but their system is broken, they refuse to believe it, and the only people you can talk to are too low on the food chain to do anything about it. I have dealt with telemarketers, businesses, angry customers, you name it - but the only time I ever yelled at someone over the phone was when I had to deal with Network Solutions. They are an abysmal excuse for a company.

            What's worse, when I tried to transfer a domain at the end of its registration period, a Network Solutions support staffer told me that you have to request the transfer at least 30 days before the domain expires. Couldn't explain why that's necessary. A higher-up the next day said that wasn't necessarily true, but it *is* company policy, so beware!

            Ugh, and now I have yet another domain that needs transferring from that bureaucratic monster.

            Alternatives are eNom.com, which has lousy support but fantastic user control and features - Their support is slow at best, but I've almost never needed it. There is also gkg.net, which is said to have the best customer support, though I've found them to be light on features.
      • You can't pgpmail your changes to them anymore, as far as I know. It's all done via SSL web pages using an id/password they give you. This kicked in over the past several months. I must have like 20 different id/passwords now, although they do have a form for allowing you to consolidate accounts.
    • With all of the domain owners running away from Verisign, I thought they were intentionally driving us out. Even though they are still the biggest, registrarstats.com has reported that Verisign was losing registered domains at the rate of more than a million domains per quarter. Their customer service for me was so bad that I thought for sure they were doing it intentionally.
  • Verisign wants to do this. I mean, since the bubble popped, trading on a name alone doesn't carry much weight, and that is the only reason I can understand that they might want to resurrect the dead...

    • Simple really (Score:3, Interesting)

      by FreeLinux ( 555387 )
      Verisign has realized that this part of their business is not profitable and is getting ready to sell it off, again. By putting the name back, they separate Network Solutions from Verisign and play on the name recognition for the eventual sale of the company. I doubt that such a sale would do as well if it were sold as The Company Formerly Known as a Division of Verisgn.

  • A little known fact. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anand_S ( 638598 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @01:27PM (#5026206)
    Verisign tried to change the name last July, but it took six months for the change to go through.

    • Re:A little known fact. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 06, 2003 @01:45PM (#5026329)
      That's funny, because it sounds so true.

      My employer has been trying to the get organization name changed on our domain name since Network Solutions put the wrong one on the domain. That was Feb 14, 1995! Yes, it's been almost eight years, and they still haven't been able to fix a simple text record associated with a domain name. We've jumped through the "create a fake letterhead with the invalid name on it and FAX it to us" hoops several times for nothing. What do you have to do to get them to listen? Eight years!

      • What do you have to do to get them to listen? Eight years!

        Easy. Sue them.

      • Re:A little known fact. (Score:3, Informative)

        by weave ( 48069 )
        They now allow changing of org name on an account via the normal manage accounts tab on their website. I did it to one domain and it worked fine.

        There is still a separate procedure for transfering ownership, although I have no idea why you can't now transfer ownership yourself by changing the org name, address, and admin/billing/tech contact handles yourself. Technically they want the new owner to enter a legal agreement with them (and charge big bucks to do an express transfer of course...)

      • That's nothing. One of our clients paid the big bucks for an "express transfer" two years ago - and the domain is still under the wrong org. Maddeningly, they have the correct organization for 'billing', but 'billing' can't make changes to DNS servers, etc - just pay the bill.

        We don't have time or money for lawsuits. The only option seems to be to let the domain expire (in Feb 2004), and then try to be the first to re-register it (with a different registrar of course).

  • Some old favorites are set to return (Score:5, Informative)

    by levik ( 52444 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @01:28PM (#5026215) Homepage
    Verisign also stated that with the return of the Network Solutions brand, customers can expect a comeback of some of the special services that NetSol was so famous for.

    Among them are the hassle-free domain transfer [wired.com] as well as the "helpful and targeted" informational mailing sent out on the daily basis to thousands of small site operators by their "trusted partners".

    • And remember this [wired.com] little gaff by NetSol? w3.org, exodis.org, colorado.edu, emory.edu and (worse!) nethead.com was transferd to the same "person".. on a weekend! I just hope that NetSol doesn't get a TIA contrat.

      What did all those domains have in common? They all had IRC servers on EfNet. Now I keep all my domains with GoDaddy [godaddy.com], great service and they have clueful people answer the phone, even late at night on weekends.

      -Joe

  • Perhaps they're re-opening the network solutions name to try to shake the "we send out as much spam as AOHell, and sell your user information to marketing companies)" image they have goin' for themselves right now...

  • Finally (Score:4, Funny)

    by antis0c ( 133550 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @01:32PM (#5026231)
    Maybe they're realizing people don't want to submit DNA samples to fix incorrect information regarding their domain name.

  • Actually... (Score:5, Funny)

    by SerialHistorian ( 565638 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @01:32PM (#5026232)
    ...Verisign isn't trying to change the name; someone faxed forms with fake signatures in, and the temps just processed the forms without checking them. Next, Verisign will have to go through a dispute process to get its corporate name back.
  • Sure its true, 87% of the people they polled recognized the Network Solutions name...


    Network Solutions? Oh yeah, they are the company that used to charge US $150 for a 2 year domain name registration. Now I can get a domain for $12 a year from a decent company.


    Fsck them, they are Bill Gates wannabees.

  • Network Solutions Redux (Score:4, Informative)

    by Dratman ( 552554 ) <<moc.tfosxam> <ta> <hplar>> on Monday January 06, 2003 @01:34PM (#5026252) Homepage
    If this move improves Verisign/Network Solution's customer service for domain names and DNS management, I'm all in favor. Although that service has been pretty abysmal, I get the impression they are genuinely trying to do better. I signed up for their Advanced DNS Manager [networksolutionsdns.com] for one of my domains after 24-hour failure at DNSMadeEasy [dnsmadeeasy.com] made me nervous. The overall reliability and redundancy of Network Solutions' DNS servers appears to be outstanding, but the site for editing DNS records has sometimes been unavailable. At $24/yr/domain, all parts of the system should work all of the time, in my always humble opinion. ---- This is not really a sig.

    • Re:Network Solutions Redux (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ajs ( 35943 )
      easydns [easydns.com] has done very well by me. Backup MX, domain transfers, dns primary and/or secondary, aliases, redirects, dynamic DNS, etc.

      Good service, and cheap. Found a bug once. Got mail from the maintainer saying it was already fixed, and going out next week.

      Still on hold with Network Solvent three years later on how the hell to transfer or delete a freakin HOST entry. Sigh.

      • Still on hold with Network Solvent three years later on how the hell to transfer or delete a freakin HOST entry. Sigh.

        I found it was easier to just make a new HOST and run with it.

      • "Still on hold with Network Solvent three years later on how the hell to transfer or delete a freakin HOST entry. Sigh."

        If the host entry belongs to a domain you've moved over to us, email support and we can remove that host entry for you (only if we're the registrar of the parent domain)
      • I had the same problem with my host entry at NSI. My IP changed, so I went through the process of trying to change it via their stupid email system. No matter what I tried, it would never approve me. Eventually I just gave up and used other hosts. I just checked the NSI site and they've changed the host management stuff to a simple webform. So, I submitted the changes I've been wanting to make for nearly a year and they went through without a problem.

        It's still a rip-off though. I have one domain at Go Daddy and pay like 9 bucks a year instead of 35 at NSI.
    • Back when they were Network Solutions, everybody always hated them. Being bought by Verisign didn't help that. By keeping the brand names and marketing separate, they can use one name for "Stuff Everybody Hates" and another for "Stuff Everybody Doesn't Hate Yet", and move products back and forth as needed.

  • Who cares (Score:2, Insightful)

    by analog_line ( 465182 )
    A pile of shit by any other name smells just as foul.

    Everyone hated Network Solutions...Verisign bought 'em, and they bought the hate right along with it. Maybe they figure that the bad blood will be isolated if they spin the old name and business back off into a more seperate entity.
    • Everyone hated Network Solutions...Verisign bought 'em, and they bought the hate right along with it. Maybe they figure that the bad blood will be isolated if they spin the old name and business back off into a more seperate entity.

      But everyone also hated Verisign. It seemed a match made in heaven. Network Solutions sold the most expensive domain name services and Verisign sells the most expensive SSL certificates. Nobody likes the hoops you have to jump through to get or modify their products, etc. How could such a merger go bad??

  • Dang! (Score:3, Funny)

    by MoxCamel ( 20484 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @01:44PM (#5026316)
    And I was hoping to register netsol.com when they let it expire.

  • Registration Highly Overrated ... (Score:4, Informative)

    by SuperDuG ( 134989 ) <be AT eclec DOT tk> on Monday January 06, 2003 @01:44PM (#5026318) Homepage Journal
    Okay here's the thing, it's cool to have your own domain, but I think the hype of buying a domain that Daddy Warbucks might want to come and buy from you for $1Mill days are long over.

    Plus lets look at it from a pure financial arena. Back in "the day" Network Solutions was basically the only place to grab a domain name, but that's not true anymore. Check This [www.nic.us] out for a little taste of why NetSol is screwed in the market. I remember switching from NetSol, to register.com [register.com] to finally, Tucows OpenSRS [tucows.com] which is dirt cheap. But NetSol is like the microsoft of the DNS world where people know it as being fairly big and its security sucks.

    With the trtouble to get MY OWN DOMAIN out of their database, I hope they go bankrupt and never set up anytype of ecommerce site again. Does anyone have anything positive to say about netsol, I mean they really were and are a horrible company that overprices everything. I mean look at verisign now, the prices for a "virtual certificate". Insane.

    • "Does anyone have anything positive to say about netsol, I mean they really were and are a horrible company that overprices everything."

      Not everything I got from them is overpriced. For instance, when I had a registered domain with them, I used to get lots of free email offers delivered straight to my inbox!

  • related questions (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Suppose you've got some domains registered through network solutions. How do you switch to a different registrar? Do you have to wait until your registration has expired with netsol or what? Who do people think is a good registrar? I was looking at dotster...are they decent?
    • I tried to switch from Network Solutions once. My account had been with them for two years and was due for renewal. A couple of weeks before the domain expired, I went to another registrar (netsol was overpriced by this point) and filled out a domain transfer form. The next day, my transfer was rejected because my account was "unpaid" at netsol. I tried again, and it was rejected for the same reason. So I sent netsol an email saying that my account had a few weeks left, and asking them what was up, and they sent me back a form letter saying that transfers are rejected if an account is unpaid. So I mailed them again and got no reply....

      I then mailed the new registrar and they said that netsol did that a lot, and that my best bet was to renew my account with netsol, and then immediately transfer the domain before netsol would flag my account as "unpaid." So I did that and it got switched ok.

      Just my story... I will never deal with them again. I think this was after the VeriSign buyout.

      To answer your final question... I use RegisterSite.com. They dont have the best prices, but they offer good service and support .ca domains. When one of my domains had a problem, they actually called me to work it out... amazing concept...

  • Regardless of what they call themselves, (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AlfaGiik ( 636208 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @01:48PM (#5026353) Homepage
    I will never deal with them again.

    Apart from the hokey 'mail from' security scheme they used to use, I find that getting through to them when there is a problem is nearly impossible. The drones on the phone (if you can find the phone number) know so little about DNS that it is physically painful, and they charge extra for what other registrars include in the price of the registration.

    In addition to that they are constantly trying to 'slam' my customers into changing registrars and breaking their domain names in the process. They also denied one of my customers' transfers because there was a 'special' on that account. (I later found that a special meant was set to expire in under a month, and they were trying to prevent the change of registrar from going through.)

    They are a thoroughly pitiful organization and they deserve all the headaches they have caused me over the years.

  • Good Grief Charlie Brown (Score:5, Insightful)

    by airrage ( 514164 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @01:57PM (#5026416) Homepage Journal
    Whether you consider yourself a Keynesian, or in the old-clasical camp of economists, I somehow tremble at some industries inability to make a profit.

    The registration of domain names seems fairly staid, and yet, common-sense would dictate that little or no profit could really be meagered from such a one-point sale business. Wal-Mart on the other attempts multiple low-cost sales, with a wide variety of products. Though I'm not sure of the ROI for Verisign, I have a feeling, once all said and done, it's less than ten-percent. As a another inidicator, airlines make five to eight percent return on their money (though probably that number is worse as of late).

    So the question I pose is thus: if a business or industry barely breaks even, and that industry or business is crucial to the welfare of our nation-state, shouldn't the government monopolize that business for the sake of our well-being? The answer, unfortunately, is NO. Because no matter how badly a business is run in the free-market, the government would only do worse.

    So when it comes to privatization of airlines, oil, or domain names (the free flow of information is becoming more central to our security), I applaud a business trying to be more competitive, trying to evolve, trying to find a better way to manage customers, even if they stumble in doing so.

    • Well, Tucows [tucows.com] seems to be doing quite well [yahoo.com] (especially in their last three quarters). They have diversified into other businesses, but their primary income is still related to domain name registration.

      - j

    • I wouldn't discount the ROI of the registrar model... If you can automate the process, overhead becomes ... Electricity, the bandwidth required to fill out a form, two executives, and two or three sysadmins that watch a thousand identical boxes?

      Startup costs are minimal (and have been long-since absorbed, two buyouts ago) the infrastructure will never need to get bigger than it was in 2000... This *should* be a tidy profit center, if they could get customers.

      I don't know what thier infrastrucutre is like, but i think thier problems stem from being born in a govenment-sponsored monopoly environment, and not having to scrape and fight in a free economy.

    • I worked for a very small domain registrar for a couple of years (GKG -- Global Knowledge Group) and you're absolutely right, there is no money in domain registration. It costs domain registrars about $6 to register a .net, .com, or .org domain (at least when I was employed there back in May). When you factor in the amount of customer support required to explain things like how a dns server works to the average Joe Shmoe, it's pretty obvious that you really can't make money by selling single domains to average people. The successful domain name registrars make their money in two main ways:

      1. Volume registrants. Joe Schmoe might register one domain, once a year, but some high volume registrants will register 5000 domains a year. You give them a volume discount, but at this level of domain purchases it really is feasible to balance customer support costs with the meager income a domain registration provides.

      2. Hosting. This is typically very profitable (at least compared to registrations). If a customer on the phone or at the website is interested in purchasing a domain they're probably also looking for hosting. Presenting a complete web package from design to registration to hosting makes it easy for a consumer to do it all in just one stop.

      Versign (network solutions) is screwed. Sure it was a cash cow at first when they had a monopoly, but now they have a broken business model.

      • Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe NetSol still has a ICANN-sanctioned monopoly where .com and .net are concerned -- My understanding is that no matter who you get your domain from, if it's in .com or .net, Netsol gets a cut. Broken business model? I don't think so...
  • But in a 2002 survey of Internet address buyers, VeriSign found that 87 percent of them were familiar with the name "Network Solutions" and could identify it as a domain name seller, while few recognized the name "VeriSign,"
    I find this hard to believe. I mean I have read several articles about Verisign's DNS in mainstream press much less technical type publications. I think that Verisign either got screwed on that poll, or they are lying to provide a justification for the switch.

  • VeriSign is the WORST company EVER. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Aqua OS X ( 458522 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @02:05PM (#5026450)
    Man... I HATE VeriSign. They've recently allowed a large number of my company's domains to be hyjacked TWICE within the last 3 months. (and yes all of our contact info and passwords are secure)

    We're now getting started with a criminal investigation (I'll probably send the details into Slashdot in a few weeks). VeriSign is a horrable company. They are insecure, they have a pathetic legal deptartment (only about 3 people), it is nearly impossible reach anyone aside from tech support, etc etc. VeriSign makes MicroSoft look like an angel.

    dotster anyone?

  • NOOOOO!!! (Score:4, Informative)

    by alispguru ( 72689 ) <bob.bane@[ ]com ['me.' in gap]> on Monday January 06, 2003 @02:07PM (#5026463) Journal
    "Network Solutions" has been a very sincere curse around our company ever since I went through hell and back getting our domain name registered (around 1994). We had 'gsti.com' at the time, 'gst.com' had lapsed about a year previously but not been officially released by the previous owners, and NS refused to transfer the registration without an email or a fax from the previous owners (as opposed to their current policy of allowing transfer within 30 seconds of lapsing). I finally had to track down the previous holders and beg and plead them to send a fax, as their company and its email services were long since defunct.

    I'm no longer a sysadmin around here, but the people who are admins respect my opinions, and we will deal with a reconstituted "Network Solutions" over my dead body. How they can think that that name has any positive value in the world today is beyond me.

  • from the like-evil-dead-two dept.

    Does this mean that they just give up and some point and try to be shitty?
    :)
  • Now, this has got to be a kick in the pants...

    ...a 2002 survey of Internet address buyers, VeriSign found that 87 percent of them were familiar with the name "Network Solutions" and could identify it as a domain name seller, while few recognized the name "VeriSign,"...


    How is it that every person involved with the internet could have told them this, but they had to conduct a survey, after debranding, and now have incur the cost of rebranding this division...

  • and who really cares about this???? (Score:3, Informative)

    by mustangdavis ( 583344 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @02:16PM (#5026508) Homepage Journal
    VeriSign is resurrecting the Network Solutions name with a new subsidiary responsible for domain name registration. It seems so eerily familiar."


    Why would you register a domain name through VeriSign anyways???

    Use register.com's Name Bargain!! [namebargain.com] ... domain names are only 8 bucks per year ... and register.com isn't going anywhere anytime soon!

    BTW: Anyone know of a RELIABLE place that is cheaper than this??


  • Verisign, NSI, Dotster... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mabu ( 178417 )
    They're Baaaaaak!

    My doctor has advised me to not discuss the plethora of issues I've historically had with Verisign/NSI due to my blood pressure.

    What I see now however, is most of the alternative registrars being almost as bad.

    We migrated all our domains over to Dotster a few years back and in the beginning we were concerned with the stability of their IIS-based system, which would often crawl to a stop in SSL mode during business hours. We actually had to make post-it note reminders to perform domain maintenance on their system later in the day because their site often was too slow. When they migrated over to a Unix-based system, we were very pleased.

    However, recently, Dotster, who was a decent registrar in my opnion, has really gone down the tubes. Their automated domain renewal system seems to not work. The web page where users can enter credit card info on file has been broken (their response, "Nobody uses that page much so we didn't notice it was broken"). And most recently, the've unleashed this obnoxious web-hosting-component company called Hostlane, which has invoiced us for services we didn't ask for and automatically charged credit cards. What's insidious is that the hosting charge is the same amount as domain renewal, which seems to make it suspiciously appear as if they're trying to sneak extra charges through on the customer's billing statements.

    I am fed up with these registrars and their sleazy business practices. NSI was the first and the worst, but now so many of the others, from Verisign to Verio, Register.com and others, they all are the pits. Does anyone have any advice for what the best choice is now? I can no longer recommend Dotster.
    • easyDNS [easydns.com]

      A little more expensive then other registrars but, then again, you've already found out you get what you pay for.

      Registration and DNS management, regular and stealth web forwarding, URL forwarding, spam filtering (and a good anti-spam policy to kick off abusers), DNS redundancy, ACL access to your management pages ... and, most importantly, incredibly responsive customer support.

      Search through Usenet [google.com] for lots of recommendations.

      • Since I run an ISP and merely want the registrars to do their job and not solicit me and my clients for competitive services, this is fast becoming an issue. Most of the registrars are bundling hosting and other services with registration. Are there any out there that draw the line and act simply as a registrar?

    • duh (Score:1)

      by jhunsake ( 81920 )
      Gandi [gandi.net], of course!

  • Being well known isn't always good (Score:5, Interesting)

    by phorm ( 591458 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @02:26PM (#5026566) Journal
    ...a 2002 survey of Internet address buyers, VeriSign found that 87 percent of them were familiar with the name "Network Solutions" and could identify it as a domain name seller, while few recognized the name "VeriSign,"...

    A lot of people recognise the name "Osama" too, but that doesn't necessarily come as a positive thing for him when a large portion of those people want him dead.

    Verisign should recognise that there is a difference between "famous" and "infamous"... from reading the posting of the slashdot crew here, I think Verisign would be much better off to build a new easy-to-remember untarnished name, rather than resurrecting one dripping with poor opinion and bad history.

  • Verisign horror stories (Score:3, Informative)

    by mabu ( 178417 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @02:29PM (#5026587)
    With fans sites such as these, you'd be trying to switch names as well...

    Verisign Horror Stories [nsihorrorstories.com]

    The Verisign Sucks Page [aetherlumina.com].

  • OK, maybe I missed a story or two here, but what's the problem with Network Solutions? I have a couple domains registered through them (actually I need to renew them, they both expire in a few months, but...). Why should I not renew them with Netwok Solutions? Why should I go to someone else?

    I'm being serious in this question (if this is a real issue). I've had no problems with them in the past, and I have no problem with giving them the few bucks they will require to keep the couple domains that I have.
    • When Verisgn does its job, you don't have to interact with them at all and you avoid the hassles and delays that cause other users to dump them. When things don't work, Verisign is nearly impossible to deal with.

      I had to wait for 12 months to recover a domain that they kept losing fax authorization to modify. I had to wait for over two years for an expired domain to be released from the registry.

      Neither of these domains were critical, so it was just a matter of convenience, but geez, why can't they just answer the phones and fix problems as they occur?

      They suck.
  • Why is it that companies who's customer service gets so horrable think the magical cure is create a new company or change their name?
  • This couldn't possiible have ANYTHING to do with the fact that Verisign [churchofsatan.com] is EVIL [ebay.com] and computer people know it, could it? And when I say "EVIL" I mean EEEEEEEE-VAH-HIL as in the FROO-IT of the DEV-IL!
  • We at NetSoultions are your one stop shop to Ashcroft Storm Trooper highjacking of your domain, Microsoft back stabing to sell out your customers from you, and basically to kick your sorry ass!

    Our Brand New Complaint department is staffed by Steve Balmer, Bill Gates, and Nuekom. Please don;t call or find the phone number, you will be sorry!

  • I wonder if they're ever going to realize that they're bleeding customers because we can go to godaddy.com (or 20 others like godaddy.com) and get the exact same thing for $9/year or less, which is 1/4 verisign/netsol's price.

    Actually, I lied, it's not the exact same service. It's far better than anything verisign can fathom.

  • VeriSign, Network Solutions, The Incompetent NIC (Score:5, Informative)

    by lanner ( 107308 ) on Monday January 06, 2003 @03:57PM (#5027299)

    I own three domain names, one of them under VeriSign/Network Solutions. Recently I had to make changes to the records for my domain names. It was a hassle.

    How long has this company been at domain name handling? While they finally have a completely web based interface for the majority of functions related to domain names, you still have to use the eMail to hostmaster@networksolutions.com to change hosts records -- that is, your domain name's domain name servers. This shows blatant incompetency in regards to automation and their engineering staff.

    How hard is it to make a little web form that is attached to a database? It's not.

    Password, what password? I had been using the old crypt-password scheme for modifications to my domain names though the old eMail change method. When I went to use their website, I found that my account required a password. What password? It was not my old password, and they never asked me to modify my account. So I had to call up and get a password assigned to my domain name account.

    And how long did it take for changed to propagate? For everything other than the hosts records, 24 hours or less. For the hosts modifications, it took over four days, and intervention by engineers because their system apparently was dropping the request for change. That would be four days of downtime for a website. Holy crap.

    Trouble ticketing system for issues? They don't really have one as far as I can tell. I had to harass the support phone-droid to give me something to track the issue by, and she gave me some tracking number that they use in their database, but she seemed to indicate that they did not have any kind of trouble ticketing system.

    If you are in business, you can't afford to do business with VeriSign/Network Solutions.



    • "If you are in business, you can't afford to do business with VeriSign/Network Solutions."

      Bloody hell, if this message could be moderated above the five it's already at, I'd hack slashdot to do it.

      Likewise with headers. This one simple statement absolutely defines the trustworthiness, reliability, and dependability of Verisign/NetSol. None. They're slimy incompetent companies that shouldn't be allowed to exist.

      DON'T SUPPORT THEM! EVER! ANYONE!
  • I'm soooo glad this story came on so I can vent .... BASTARDS!!!!

    I've gone from a simple dislike to a passionate hate of this company. I'm trying to transfer domains from these morons to Joker for 2 weeks now. Each time it takes Netslo 5 days to reject them. Inquiries to Netslo reply with cut-n-paste uselessness. I found the problem yesterday. Netslo's request to confirm the transfer emails came in with the subject "Information about your account". Guess where these where going? /dev/null

    I contend these domain name jackals purposely wrote the subject to get snuffed by spam filters. Every other email from them contain the domain name in the subject line except for these transfer confirms. Now I've wasted money on a last minute payment to prevent an expire and on a non-refundable transfer fee to Joker. Their "Customer Retention" tactics are more pathetic than AOL's.

  • When they started switching to a user/pass system, they wouldn't give you that info by email, you had to fax to get it reset. Now, they'll gladly send the user/pass to the admin contact without bothering about anything else. Better, you can ask for your user-level password, which will give you control of all domains associated with the handle.
    And their attempt to restrict tech contacts not to modify admin info is a nice try.. Just edit the URL and you're done ;)
  • got an odd error today "certificate signing authority is unknown or invalid" when I tried to go to the "home page" manager for pacbell -- details showed the cert manager to be verisign...

  • Free Domain... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by thedji ( 561789 )
    In February of last year I purchased the domain ravin.gs [ravin.gs]. To this day VeriSign still won't help me set it up...

    After a month or two of emailing back and forth with tech support, trying to get them to sort out my DNS's, I gave up in frustration when none of the host registration things you have to do for each DNS actually got processed, and when I finally got them to work (or so it seemed) the host records for my domain still never updated.

    The "24 hour" replies to email support NEVER took less than 2 days, normally being around 3-4. And their final solution after constant nagging on my part was "sorry we can't help you on email, call up our tech support number and get them to fix it". Unfortunately for me, I live in Australia so I'm usually sleeping when the number is open, and I don't want to pay hundreds of dollars in phone calls just to get them to fix their own problems.

    So, being the Aussie Battler I am, I gave up.

    If anyone wants the domain "ravin.gs", just email me and i'll transfer it to you for free (as in beer, speech, whatever - i don't want the fucking thing). It expires next month but I don't want it. It's got the NetSol curse.
  • I just got spammed with a notice of a "new Network Solutions". Among other things, they're offering frequent flyer miles... So I'm no longer worried they'll make a big come back. :-P

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