Network Solutions Advertises On Your Sub-Domains 157
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.
If there is one lesson that I have learned (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:If there is one lesson that I have learned (Score:4, Funny)
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Was pleasantly surprised when their DNS system allowed me to make a round-robin.
-uso.
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Ah, but you did:
All generalizations are bad! I'll raise my hand in support of GoDaddy as well. If you're thick-skinned enough to ignore all their upsell attempts*, they're a straightforward and effective registrar with good prices. I can't speak for their other services, but as a registrar they do the job and they do it well. Automatic renewals by credit card (if you hav
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Re:If there is one lesson that I have learned (Score:5, Informative)
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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.
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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.
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Contracts don't make a market less free, they create trust and formality within that market. The parties are free to enter into those contracts or not, but once they enter into that contract, they're obligated to follow through. What's wrong with that?
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The simplist way to deal with this problem... (Score:2, Interesting)
The only problem with geeky nerds is they are probably very smelly ones.
I know mine are...
Re:The simplist way to deal with this problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Alternatives? (Score:5, Interesting)
Thanks in advance.
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PairNIC has always been my choice. However, IIRC, all registers have to go through Network Solutions for .com/.net/.org/.info/.biz domains, so there's a limit to how much "voting with your feet" you can do.
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FWIW they're going through growing pains at the moment.
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Whenever I've had a support request, got it answered really fast.
Just my $0.02.
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I can't recommend them highly enough.
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They work.
Plus, when the Public Interest Registry issue was going on, Dotster provided funding and lobbying to keep it in public hands.
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They are a bit pricey at $25/yr, but they are very flexible in their domain, dns, mail, etc management. I happily pay the extra money to never have a problem.
--Glenn
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For domain registration, I've switched over to https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/ [nearlyfreespeech.net]. They seem to take your privacy a lot more seriously than others. They also have a ver
opt out (Score:1)
Re:opt out (Score:5, Informative)
Good luck with that. Unless you plan on being fully self-sufficient on an island in the middle of nowhere, you won't be able to do it.
Re:opt out (Score:4, Informative)
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You're on slashdot, surely you support a "stupid tax"!
Ridiculous prices anyway (Score:5, Interesting)
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Hope it works out... more Netsol chicanery... (Score:5, Informative)
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Hopefully they will continue to abuse their monopoly so egregiously that they'll lose it in the end.
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Read it even more carefully. (Score:4, Insightful)
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
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Re:Read it even more carefully. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Mod parent up (Score:2)
Re:Read it even more carefully. (Score:5, Informative)
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It's a shame they comercialized
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What about brand identity, too? Like... if you register mycompany.us, does the registrar prevent registrations at mycompany.ca.us, mycompany.ny.us, etc?
Up here, we still have that. You have to pay for registration, but my own domain is killerbob.ca. Because I've registered that, I need to give express written consent in order to register anything else in
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I too dislike NSI, but
Holy Flaimbait Batman (Score:1)
This is if you host your site on their web servers. Be intelligent and learn to seperate their registrar business from their hosting business. A lot of vhosting providers do funny stuff with 404's and such.
http://omgwtfbbq.cnn.com/ [cnn.com] isn't suddenly going to start being a Verisign ad page. Seeming to imply that's the case is sla
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The webpage you would get sent to is probably quite like what you described.
This is confusing (Score:5, Insightful)
Do your own rerouting? (Score:2)
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)
The Problem is ICANN (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:The Problem is ICANN (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would anyone expect different? (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
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59K-word user agreement!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - 76,944 words
no comments...
Re:59K-word user agreement!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - 76,944 words
Still, I'm moving my pages to Hogwarts Hosting !
Can we end this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Bonus if we can make it legally required that every contract have a human-readable summary, similar to the Creative Commons ones. Here's their summary of the GPLv2. [creativecommons.org]
The moral of the story is... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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sub randdomain {
my $len = 4 + int(28*rand); # 4-30 chars
my @chars = ("a".."z", "-", "0".."9");
my $name = @chars[int(26*rand)]; # first char is alpha
while (--$len > 0) {
$name
}
$name . ".com";
}
Of course, doing anything with this code that might be considered a Denial of Service attack would not
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Awfully nice of you... (Score:2, Insightful)
long and complex user agreements (Score:2, Insightful)
Worst registrar, ever (Score:2)
Pretty Sad That... (Score:5, Informative)
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:
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
What have they all misconstrued? (Score:2)
"Pretty sad that 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."
On the contrary, I think those articles, and most comments here, get it right. What is being said in the articles or here that you disagree with?
"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).
That's exactly what I've under
1&1 hosting does the same (Score:2)
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
NS just keeps getting better (Score:2)
I'm not with them, I use pairnic, but would my registrar still be able to do that if my server is it's own DNS and holds the master zones for my domains?
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Me, I've had a bad taste for NetSol since the 90's. They've always been up to sneaky shit, this latest story didn't surprise me at all. In fact I'd be more surprised if they suddenly stopped being skeevy.
That, combined with the fact that they charge 1994 prices in the GoDaddy era is all the reasons I need to completely ignore
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Yes. Your registrar submits the master NS records that tell the world where the nameservers for your domain are. So, for example, for example.com there are NS records in the "com" zone that identify the authoritative nameservers for example.com. If your registrar sends an update changing those NS records to identify their nameservers instead of yours, they gain control over name resolution for your domain. A sneaky registrar could have nameservers that, when they get a query, do a query to the nameservers y
So what's the deal with registrars? (Score:2)
Is there something I'm missing?
And the money they make (Score:1)
Of course when has netsol every been fair?
Nevermind the domain squatting (Score:2)
Who on Earth would ... (Score:2)
Anyone who buys from him is a hypocrite (Score:1, Funny)
Anyone who has ever said they don't like spam and then buys web hosting from this jerkoff is a fucking hypocrite. End of story.
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And if my fellow
Ok, I kid, I kid.
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It is not Goatse.
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Fuck I am in a weird mood today.
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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