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| Domain Name Games - We the People Always Lose
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| Friday, January 11, 2008 |
Domain Name Practice Criticized
A news entity finally reported a practice that has been going on for years. If you are a website owner or webmaster, you know what I refer to, which I call the golden privacy rule: Whatever you type into a form field on the internet can be recorded. With this knowledge comes the understanding that your information may be monetized as well.After weeks of testing, Network Solutions LLC began this week to grab names that people search for on its Web site but don't immediately register. The name is locked up for about four days, during which the person who made the search can buy it directly from the company for $35 a year -- a few times more than what many of its rivals charge. After that, the name returns to the pool and can be registered by anyone through any registration company. Rule of thumb: Avoid searching for domain names at any entity until you are ready to purchase, and to specifically purchase within that searching session.
In this instance, Network Solutions claims their practice is a consumer-protection measure. They are correct in their claim, no matter how painful it may sound. Many-a-companies create spiders, bots and other applications that attempt to record what users type into domain name search text fields. These companies gage the popularity of the names, snap up suitable ones, and then put $5,000 price tags on them. Entities like Network Solutions that provide domain searches face difficulty stopping such 3rd party actions.
Still though, if every domain name search (hundreds of thousands per day?) at Network Solutions is recorded and reserved as unavailable for 4 days, the odds of legitimately purchasing a desired domain name has sunk to an alarming new low. With Network Solutions new consumer-protection plan, instead of seeing 90% of domain name search results with the message, "This Domain Name is Unavailable," we will see this message 99.9% now.
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Posted by Colleen |
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