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Network Solutions Advertises On Your Sub-Domains

Posted by kdawson on Fri Apr 11, 2008 09:22 AM
from the why-are-we-not-surprised dept.
The Internet Businesses
Wowsers writes "The Register reports that customers have found that their defunct or forgotten-about sub-domains have been taken over by Network Solutions to send users to ad pages. By digging through a 59K-word user agreement, you can find the following text: 'You also agree that any domain name directory, sub-directory, file name or path (e.g.) that does not resolve to an active web page on your Web site being hosted by Network Solutions, may be used by Network Solutions to place a "parking" page, "under construction" page, or other temporary page that may include promotions and advertisements for, and links to, Network Solutions' Web site...'" TechCrunch first brought this NetSol practice to light, and Ars explained how to opt out of it if you host there.
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Submission: Network Solutions target sub-domains for adverts by Wowsers (1151731)
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  • If there is one lesson that I have learned (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pembo13 (770295) on Friday April 11 2008, @09:26AM (#23036072) Homepage
    Is that registrars have don't care who has a domain. They will happily forget to send you an email and have your domain expire and sell it to a spammer.

    • Re:If there is one lesson that I have learned (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2008, @09:44AM (#23036322)
      But. But. But that's the free market self regulating itself!

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by AutopsyReport (856852)
      On the contrary here. I always receive three to four emails from GoDaddy reminding me to renew my domains. These reminders are sent right up until its set to expire. And it's an automatic system, so I don't know a registrar could forget. I know the general consensus on Slashdot is that GoDaddy is not a respected registrar, but I've been using them for years and have no complaints.
      • I didn't say GoDaddy was at issue.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by dosius (230542)
          I use it for both of my domains (usotsuki.info and hoshinet.org) with no issues.

          Was pleasantly surprised when their DNS system allowed me to make a round-robin.

          -uso.

    • Re:If there is one lesson that I have learned (Score:5, Informative)

      by timeOday (582209) on Friday April 11 2008, @10:06AM (#23036632)
      Apparently if you use their hosting service, even if you don't let it expire, they can redirect 404's from your website to any site of their choosing! No thanks!

    • As a happy Register.com customer, you can sign up for auto-renew and they will automatically renew it when the time comes (as long as you maintain an up-to-date credit card on your account). Even then, I had them call me on the day of telling me that my card wouldn't go through.

    • I've had my registrar send several emails to me, and even hold the domain for a certain amount of time after it expired, so that I could renew a few days late.

      Yes, they will happily sell it to a spammer, but it also takes almost no effort for them to keep you informed, and they don't really care if you keep it, either. I imagine they'd be perfectly happy selling 100% to spammers now, but it's seriously a "why the hell not" kind of decision.
    • They should just skip the middle step and allow domains to switch hands whenever a better offer is received. Let the free market decide Where I Want To Go Today.
  • Switch to another provider. Vote with your feet.

    The only problem with geeky nerds is they are probably very smelly ones.
    I know mine are...

  • Ridiculous prices anyway (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MisterSquirrel (1023517) on Friday April 11 2008, @09:30AM (#23036138)
    Having a domain registered with them since 1999, I received a renewal notice... wanting $35.99 to renew for a year. When I called to tell them what an absurd price that was, they said well that's just their regular price, and they would have someone call me back about maybe getting a lower price. I've always hated marketing tactics like that, so I am of course just transferring it to be registered elsewhere. I highly recommend not using Network Solutions as your domain registrar, just based on my own experience with them.

  • Read it even more carefully. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SQLGuru (980662) on Friday April 11 2008, @09:33AM (#23036162)

    'You also agree that any domain name directory, sub-directory, file name or path (e.g.) that does not resolve to an active web page on your Web site being hosted by Network Solutions, may be used by Network Solutions to place a "parking" page, "under construction" page, or other temporary page that may include promotions and advertisements for, and links to, Network Solutions' Web site
    (emphasis mine)

    So, does that mean that if you register a domain through Network Solutions but have it hosted somewhere else (even your own hardware), they can usurp control over the domain and put this crap out there?

    Layne

    • Re:Read it even more carefully. (Score:5, Informative)

      by rockwood (141675) on Friday April 11 2008, @09:49AM (#23036398) Homepage Journal
      they only do this if you use them for DNS. Though once the domain goes inactive, the DNS automatically reverts to their local DNS until the domain is paid and active again. They are also new ventures, even though they will deny it to the end. They've report selling domains for 100k+ - NetSol is so underhanded and full of marketing tricks and ploys that it isn't even funny.

      • Re:Read it even more carefully. (Score:5, Informative)

        by hey! (33014) on Friday April 11 2008, @09:51AM (#23036436) Homepage Journal
        I believe you've got this right.

        If you are hosting your own web site, there is no magic whereby NS can reach out and grab a URL and redirect it whereever it pleases. DNS doesn't work that way.

        This is only possible if the host in the URL resolves to a NS box, at point your browser hands the URL to the server on that box and the box figures out what to send back. What this amounts to is allowing them to use the 404 not found page to promote their interests rather than yours, even if you are a current, paid up customer for hosting.

        Now if we were in the Utopian future of the semantic web, we would need to watch the guardians of that very closely indeed, but DNS falls far short of that.

        With respect to subdomains -- that's similar, but a bit different. If you move your domain registration to another service, there's nothing they can do about subdomains. But if you let NS run your DNS service, then they're claiming the right to benefit from things like mistyped URLs that should resolve to YOUR content.

        It's not NICE, but it is not nefarious either. What it says is that NS reserves the right to treat its customers in a cheesy way. Well, then the customers should expect something in return. If all things being equal, one vendor stipulates he can grab the benefit of people trying to reach you but failing, and the other doesn't, you should go to the vendor who treats your name service and URL space as belonging to you.

        • It's a shame that NS has to be watched like a hawk, but they're proven in the past that they'll stretch their agreements to their edge. Of course no one else does this, right? There are the honorable, and the dishonorable organizations and it's getting more difficult to tell them apart. My take of NS (and I left them long ago, but my friends deal with their madness) is that they'll continue to push the edges to gain revenue at the expense of perceived honor. They remind me of telcos in this regard.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by corsec67 (627446)
        No, I read that differently. If you own soggyballs.com, this would be if you had used i.have.soggyballs.com, but are no longer using the i.have. subdomain.

        The webpage you would get sent to is probably quite like what you described.

  • This is confusing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by soarkalm (845400) on Friday April 11 2008, @09:34AM (#23036180)
    This is a very bad thing. When this happens to me when I browse, it makes me do a double take and try to figure out how I goofed up the URL and ended at a squatters site.
  • A good one here would probably be to add a catchall that redirects everything to 'fuckoffnetworksolutions.yourdomain.whatever' where they can put all the advertisements they want..

    Just let that one give a 404, and then NetSol takes over from there.

    Has anyone tried something along these lines yet?

  • Shameful (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Skynet (37427) on Friday April 11 2008, @09:36AM (#23036204) Homepage
    They could make this agreeable to domain owners by making it opt-in and offering a cut of the profits to the domain owner.
  • ICANN is the root problem here, and in many other issues. Specifically, ICANNs complete lack oversight over registrars. This in itself would not be so bad, but coupled with ICANN's refusal to consider behavior and ethics when accrediting registrars. Incidents like this are eroding peoples faith in the current system, and if it goes on like this other countries will have a very substantial case for removing internet control from US hands.

    Ultimately, internet registrars need to have a code of ethics, which they can be held to account over. Some people might call this woolly thinking. However doctors, engineers and yes, even lawyers and estate agents, have codes of practice that they are supposed to abide by and can in theory be held to account over. Registrars need only amass monopolies of scale and pay off ICANN with cold hard cash. Naturally, such a system attracts the most unscrupulous type of practices.

    Only two things can break the net as it currently stands. ICANN, and the telecoms. The latter is dubious. If this mismanagement continues ICANN could literally bring about its own demise, and possibly the free internet along with it.
    • As much as I hate NetSol, their hosting service redirecting dead subdomains has nothing to do with them being a registrar. Other hosts, such as Dreamhost or Lunarpages (both, afaik, popular web hosts for small pages) could do the same thing if they controlled your DNS.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by samkass (174571)
        But this article says that if you register and host your site with NetSol, they can redirect ALL 404 errors to their spam, even for an active domain. That goes way beyond "dead subdomains".

    • Re:The Problem is ICANN (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Bill Dimm (463823) on Friday April 11 2008, @11:07AM (#23037418) Homepage

      ICANN is the root problem here, and in many other issues. Specifically, ICANNs complete lack oversight over registrars.
      This isn't s registrar problem, it is a web hosting problem (or a DNS service problem in the case of subdomains) that happens to involve a hosting company that is also a registrar. Planting ads on 404 pages could be done by any (scummy) hosting company. Registrars that don't provide hosting can't monkey with 404 pages. The problem doesn't involve the registration of the domain name, it's the optional services (hosting/DNS) provided after registration where the problem arises, so I don't see how ICANN has anything to do with it. I'm not saying ICANN doesn't have shortcomings, I'm just saying this isn't one of them.

  • Why would anyone expect different? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pyrr (1170465) on Friday April 11 2008, @09:55AM (#23036498)

    If someone signs-on with Network Solutions, it's par for the course. It's just what they do, from domain "tasting", to putting holds on domains people search on, to sending out misleading renewal notices, to other highly questionable practices, they're still acting like they act like they're still the registrar monopoly. Until ICANN decides to smack them down, they'll continue to push the limits.

    It's almost like they hold meetings to decide which abusive or sleazy practice they'll see how long they can get away with each month.

  • godaddy has a variation on this (Score:4, Informative)

    by museumpeace (735109) on Friday April 11 2008, @10:03AM (#23036596) Journal
    they offer a revenue sharing of sorts...giving you a tiny cut of any click payments from ads lodged on your parked pages. But I think its a scam unless you actually set up tons of parking because you pay godaddy a $4/month fee to join this plan. To date I have made exactly zero money back because I did not specifically set up ads on my "under construction" pages. Its just godaddy taking unearned money out of my pocket.

  • 59K-word user agreement!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GerardAtJob (1245980) on Friday April 11 2008, @10:28AM (#23036926)
    Network Solutions user agreement - ~59,000 words
    Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - 76,944 words
    no comments...

  • The moral of the story is... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bryansix (761547) on Friday April 11 2008, @10:33AM (#23036990) Homepage
    Don't use Network Solutions for anything, EVER

    Especially don't use them as a whois service because they will place a hold on any domain you look up that isn't owned and force you to buy it through them unless you just wait a week and then the hold is taken off. My Boss did this and I told him never to do it again. Network Solutions charges more for everything and their customer service and level of service on products is WORSE. So why pay more if you aren't getting anything in return. Just stop using Network Solutions and put them out of business once and for all.
  • ...since you are going to give me the ad revenues, right guys? I paid for the domain so it's my money right? What? You're not? And you practice front-running on my domain availability look ups? And you charge me 3x the national rate for registrations? Oh, wait, is your business model based on enantiodroma [wikipedia.org]? Because you're doing a very good job of making yourself extinct.
  • People need to realize that there's something unethical about long and complex user agreements, and stop doing business with companies that use them. A good company will provide a simple service and do it well. It won't be easy, because most companies have long and complex user agreements, but this is a shift that needs to happen eventually.
  • I took over management of a client's domain that was hosted by Network Solutions, and they are by far the *worst* registrar I have ever had to deal with. Their menus are intentionally misleading in order to try to sell the customer more services, and they employ draconian policies to try to prevent you from leaving.

  • Pretty Sad That... (Score:5, Informative)

    by 1WingedAngel (575467) on Friday April 11 2008, @11:23AM (#23037598) Homepage
    Two different sites with "Tech" in the name and the Slashdot readership haven't managed to figure out this trickery yet.

    There are no magic 404s here.

    When you set up your DNS with Network Solutions, a wildcard DNS entry is created. It defaults to an ad page (just like every other DNS record with them does).

    At that point you have 2 options:
    • Opt out - Any of your DNS records pointing to the ad page will go to a non-ad "Under Construction" page
    • Assign your wildcard record somewhere - Like you should have been doing in the first damn place. "Lern2DNS nub."

    While it might not be the most feel-good thing Network Solutions could do with your DNS, don't attribute to their malice what is easily attributed to user laziness.

    Why do I feel like I'm on Trolldot today?

    Disclosure: I have 1 domain with Network Solutions and 6 with GoDaddy
  • I've noticed they've parked some of my empty domains and subdomains with sedo completely and utterly without my permission.

    Whilst I have parked a specific domain with sedo in the past for a very short time I most certainly have never accepted to have anything else parked with them and I'm the type of person that does actually read contractual agreements for these sort of things nowadays due to the constant abuse of customers and their rights via hidden clauses in everything ranging from ISP contracts to MMO

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Amen, brother.

        And if my fellow /.'ers hate spam as much as the parent poster and I, check out my book [amazon.com]. It's well worth a read.

        Ok, I kid, I kid.
    • Why Does anyone even bother with the likes of GoDaddy and Network Solutions for their hosting services?

      There, fixed that for ya. Obviously somebody bothers or they'd have gone out of business as a host long ago.

      I agree with you, I've been using register4less.com as I don't need a lot of space, fifteen bucks a year for registration AND hosting! I have yet to have a single complaint. Back when I had thefragfest.com (lapsed after boredom, someone told me it's a porn site now) I had a 404 which used their 404 p

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