On Thu, Mar 11, 1999 at 12:18:49PM -0800, Gill, Kathy wrote:
> "They [NSI] seem to be embarking on a campaign to benefit their [domain name
> registration] system," says the VP of one ISP.
Bingo. Here's a forwarded note from the NANOG mailing list -- from
Mike Sandburg, [EMAIL PROTECTED], on March 4, 1999 that I believe
covers this quite thorougly. It is in reply to a discussion where
speculation was expressed about whether or not a power outage had
anything to do with the domain problems.
This is partly true, but I am sure it had nothing to do with a
power outage. InterNIC did, indeed, drop over 18,000 domain
names on the night of Sunday February 28. This affected at
least 3 names controlled by my organization, all of which were
due for renewal during the month of March. I am aware of one
other ISP who lost 220 names at the same time. I believe most,
if not all, of those names were likewise due for renewal
during March.
NSI is not admitting much, as is to be expected. But I can
tell you that they did an emergency root server update at my
insistance late Monday night, just as they had done a while
back after they messed up AOL.COM. But they even screwed that
up by putting in erroneous information for the domain servers
associated with at least one of my domain names.
Note that these involve domains that were paid in full to some
date in March and would be coming due for renewal during the
month, but were instead dropped even before their renewal
date. Contractually we have 30 days from the due date to make
payment. Only after that date should InterNIC have the right
to terminate a domain, and that should only take place after a
reasonable grace period of being "on-hold."
Again. This involves domains that were paid in full, and
inspite of that fact InterNIC removed the domains in clear
violation of their "contract." Their attitude toward most of
those involved is one of, "Tough sh*t!" without even caring
that they are in the wrong or that they are destroying people's
lives and businesses.
That isn't earth-shattering news, as they have maintained such
an attitude for years. What is news is the fact that they seem
to be deliberately embarking on a new campaign of extortion to
the benefit of their new worldNIC.net domain registration
"service." As you may know they will soon lose their monopoly
as other companies are going to be involved in maintaining the
domain name registry. Gearing up for that eventuallity, NSI
has started registering names under their new domain at
worldNIC.net. Apparently they are trying to move some of the
larger consumers of domain names to their new service, and at
the same time they are raising the stakes.
If you've been in this business very long you will recall that
when we first started having to pay for domain names it was
$100 for the first 2 years. Then it dropped to $70. Do you
know why? It is my understanding that the extra $15 was
supposed to be saved in an 'Intellectual Infrastructure'
account, pursuant to NSI's agreement with the National Science
Foundation when it took over from NSF the domain name
registry. That never happened, and at one point there was talk
of NSI having to issue refunds of all the overpayments. That
never happened either. The point is, we now pay $70 for the
first 2 years and $35 annually thereafter.
Now check out http://www.worldnic.net and notice that Network
Solutions is raising the price to $119 per domain name. Now
we have a choice. We can register a name through Network
Solutions at InterNIC.net for $70, or we can register a name
through Network Solutions at WorldNIC.net for $119.00. Now
there's one very creative way to break up a monopoly. Can you
spell R I P - O F F ?
One victim of this scam was told yesterday, by someone at
InterNIC.net, that she would have to go to WorldNIC.net
<http://www.worldnic.net> to re-register the 220 domains that
had been improperly terminated. The domains in question had
already been paid for, with renewals coming due sometime in
March. Examine the economics there. 220 domain renewals at
$35 is $7700. Compare that with having to start over with new
2 year registrations at $119 each. That's $26,180, a rip-off
of $18,480. The Internet has long been called the Information
Super-Highway, and now NSI has learned the art of HIGHWAY
ROBBERY.
Hard to believe? Well, it should be hard to believe that they
could even conceive this scam, much less get away with it. But
this is what really happened this week since last Sunday.
I've also been told that another 7,000 domain names were
dropped Monday night, bringing the total to 25,000 domains.
Multiply that by $119 and you can clearly understand NSI's
motivation. That amounts to close to $3,000,000. Three
million reasons for InterNIC to screw with your domains.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. If they are not
stopped, this could start to run into some "real money." You
could be their next victim if something is not done immediately
to stop this practice.
In the meantime NSI denies any financial responsibility for
their errors. Contractually their liability is supposedly
limited to $500 per domain name, but try to get it from them.
I called to demand compensation and got the expected run
around, only to be told flatly that there was nothing I could
do about it. We'll see about that.
At the very least their scam has been exposed for what it is.
Perhaps that will end the practice. Yet, somehow I am not so
gullible as to believe that they won't continue the scam in
some form.
More information on the matter can be found at
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article/0,1087,3_75171,00.html
and you might want to contact Gilinda Rogers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
the victim with the 220 names. The last I had heard from her,
two of the names that were stolen from her have already been
registered by others. Try to imagine yourself in such a
situation!
---Rsk
Rich Kulawiec
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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