Considering what policies to apply to our domain registration services, somebody chipped in saying “just tell me we’re not going to do what Network Solutions do!”. Puzzled looks all round lead to the explanation that Network Solutions effectively hijack any .com you search for using their domain lookup. The accountant suggested that there might be a profit in this practice, but the rest of us were horrified.
Firefox was fired up on laptops around the room as we all headed off to Network Solutions to witness this practice. “Try NetworkSolutionsStoleThisDomain.com!” So that was what was typed into their search box and (surprise, surprise) the domain was available to buy for $9. We didn’t register it, instead we typed the URL into Firefox and saw that Network Solutions had indeed stolen this domain (see screenshot).
We had to break for coffee after this because all we could do was discuss how awful a policy this was. When we reconviened, we started a list entitled ‘Ethical domain registration policies’:
UKCZ shall:
- Provide unbiased domain registration results
- Provide domain registration at the lowest price we are able
- Provide clear information about registering a domain
- Not monitor domains searched for by customers
- Not ‘hijack’ any domain following a search
- Not ’steal’ domains which are not re-registered*
It’s probably not an exhaustive list, but at least we discussed the ethics of domain registration. We don’t think Network Solutions has, so chalk one up for us!
* This clause was added by the big boss. The accountant hates it because he says that he sees such holding pages all the time and they must make money for the hosting companies, but the boss explained that he lost two prize domains - including ukcz.com - to 1and1 Internet after they failed to transfer them when instructed to do so, placed their own spam pages up, and then sold the domains to companies who demand premium prices for them. Being forced to pay $1,000 or more for ukcz.com, especially when we had owned it for the five years previously is simply outrageous.