Recent dealings with NSI

[Jack Broughton]

Greetings.

It's been a little while since I've written anything on this list. I 
don't think this has been mentioned but apologies if this subject has 
been already been addressed.

Thankfully I have had to deal with Network Solutions very little over 
the last year so I'm not sure when they started this practice.

Recently I had a client's domain that we were having trouble 
transferring from NSI to us.  We've been down this road many times and 
so *thought* we knew the process well.  I was listed as the admin 
contact and so the transfer message from Opensrs/Us was coming to me.  
I'd respond and then we'd wait for the NSI generated acceptance email to 
come.  Well of course this email never came and I figured that NSI 's 
system was just screwing up and not sending it out.  After 3 successive 
rounds of making the request, letting it expire and then requesting 
again I decided to call them.

Here's what I found out:

- I spoke to a representitive who was in full command of the English 
language (certainly a refreshing change) and actually had the ability to 
look up all sorts of details right at her finger tips.  (i.e. no being 
passed off from person to person with long hold times in between).

- She could verify that in fact NSI was sending out their request emails 
and they were not getting responded to. When I asked the email address 
they were using they stated one that did not show up anywhere on the 
WHOIS.  She then explained that they had been getting customer 
complaints about whois information containing personal info and 
therefore had created their own hidden (secret?) database behind the 
scenes that they use for correspondance with the domain owner.  The only 
way to view your information in this database is by their web-based 
account interface.

- When I eplained that the contact info they had was correct but the 
email they had belonged to a web designer at a now defunct company she 
said that this wasn't the only means of verification. Because the 
password challenge question would have also been setup by this web 
designer asking the domain owner wouldn't work either. She said that if 
he called her from the phone number they had on file that they could use 
that as verification of who they were!  That was news to me but 
certainly far simpler than the old faxing method. (Thankfully the phone 
number was still correct.)

- When I complained that the domain name had now expired and I didn't 
want to pay NSI for another year just so it could be transferred she 
said that this was no problem.  Because their records showed that 
attempts had been made to transfer the domain well in advance of the 
expiry they could just "push the transfer through".  This certainly is 
news to me!  I've often been frustrated by NSI screwing up and then once 
the domain has expired stating they couldn't do anything with the domain 
until it was in a "paid up" status.

Anyway I'm interested in the legitimacy of this secret contact database 
for them to accept a transfer request.  At no time did I (as 
administrative contact on the domain) get any indication from NSI that 
they were sending an email to the registrant contact they had on file.  
(Or equivalent notification that perhaps their email may or may not be 
going to a different address than the admin one.)

Another thing I found interesting is that they use a graphic "code" on 
NSI's website that needs to be typed in to do a complete whois.  
(Complete meaning that it shows the contact info as well as the expiry 
date etc.)  They also use this concept when using their "Next 
Registration Rights" service which appears to be the product name 
they're associating with WLS.  I guess this is to thwart automated 
lookups of info from them but personally I think most people will just 
find it a pain.

I've been on holidays for a bit so I apologize if I didn't read some of 
the back postings very thoroughly and missed a discussion on these subjects.

Cheers.

Jack