For some reason I thought that Geotrust was supposed to refrain from directly contacting our customers for certificate renewals. In our resellers2 RWI we have end-user renewal notice customization that begins with a 60-day renewal notice, however Geotrust is contacting customers prior to that with the following renewal:
<quote>
*** This email was automatically generated from a non-response mailbox. ***
Renewal Notice for [customer's hostname here]
Dear GeoTrust Customer,
Your GeoTrust True BusinessID certificate will expire in 88 Days! It is important that you renew your certificate as soon as possible to ensure your website is securely handling credit card transactions and collecting sensitive information through your website. Please note that GeoTrust acquired Equifax Secure Technology in September 2001.
GeoTrust will add up to 3 months to your new certificate to allow you to renew today without losing any of your existing certificate validity period. Renew your True BusinessID certificate today and GeoTrust will give you 12% off a two-year certificate!
HOW DO YOU RENEW?
To renew your certificate, please do one of the following:
1. If you are GeoTrust Reseller/Partner, please Log In to your GeoCenter account and select the Placing Orders option. Renew certificate through the normal process. Our systems will automatically recognize the domain as a renewal, and provide you with this special offer.
2. If your service provider purchased this certificate, please contact them directly to take advantage of this offer.
3. If you purchased the certificate from www.geotrust.com, click on the following URL and select one of the renewal options:
http://www.geotrust.com/webtrust/renewal
4. Or contact us through our customer support center, http://www.geotrust.com/customer_support, for renewal suggestions.
Please note that a certificate signing requests must be generated from your web server. If your SSL certificate was originally obtained through your ISP, then you must contact them immediately and they will generate a new request on your behalf. If your web server is Microsoft IIS 5, then you MUST generate a new Certificate Signing Request (CSR).
In an effort to continue to provide excellent customer service, a member of our team will attempt to reach the contacts listed on your website as a final reminder.
If you have already renewed your certificate, please disregard this notice.
Thanks for choosing GeoTrust again!
Sincerely,
Rapid Response Unit @ GeoTrust
For Support, FAQs and other information, please go to http://www.geotrust.com/customer_support
</quote>
Although they ever so briefly mention purchasing from a "service provider" this certainly does not help the customer know where to renew, especially considering this notice is coming almost a month prior to our renewal notice, and given embedded URLs in the message my guess is 99% of the customers receiving this message will opt to renew through it.
Also please note the part where it says "... a member of our [Geotrust] team will attempt to reach the contacts listed on your website...".
I thought this was the kind of cheesy direct marketing to our customers was not allowed by Tucows. Can you look into this please?
Thanks, Todd Jagger
