ExpireGuy said:
1. registrants personal and private data info is being used to register domains which could leave them open to unforseen accountability....
But, the fact still exists that these are not names that are DIFFERENT than what registrants already own.
ExpireGuy said:
2. Registrars are showing evidence of anti competitive practices....when you register infos "on behalf of your clients" then your clients won't be registering them elsewhere. Sipence registering close to 1 million of them knows this all to well.
But, if you DID want the name at another registrar, you can transfer it simply enough. 60 days isn't an eternity, though it could feel like one. Moreover, transfers are generally much cheaper than new registrations. If its the case that you could not take advantage of the "free" registrantion elsewhere, then I'd have to see the case where a request for an immediate DELETION was not honored (anyone knows how long such a request takes for the registry to complete on names over 6 days old)? I asked if such a case was currently at issue, but no one seemed to answer that question.
ExpireGuy said:
3. .info numbers are inflated (almost double) to 3 mill in 3 months......nice numbers for Affilias to show ICANN when they add them to their .net bid in January to ICANN. Timing of this promotion is questionable.
"Promotions" are always for reasons other than sublime benevolence. ALWAYS. BestBuy was selling 2GHz PC's for $199 the other day. I don't think it was out of the goodness of their heart. I guess, referencing what John pointed to earlier in this thread, I have the feeling people don't READ their TOS. Some registrars SELL YOUR NAME to other companies to market to. Is that ID theft because they've used our personal and private data for business gain? Would it matter if they told us ahead of time, but we didn't read the whole note we clicked "ok" to early on?
GoDaddy recently made some changes to its privacy policy. I'm more disturbed with privacy policy changes than free domain name promotions. Any information I put in my whois, I do NOT consider private. I have an eFax number I stick in my whois record. I sometimes stick a PO Box in there, as many due. Often its my company name, and its not always ME I'm registering the name for. Whois records are being raided on a regular basis for direct mail purposes. Not cool, but its a reality. Exposure to litigation maybe?
#1.) It's on record, I'm sure that this promotion has happened. The dates would be proof enough I'd think.
#2.) You can have the names deleted.
ExpireGuy said:
I don't have to like it.....but if this type of practise was going on in another industry. There'd be an inquiry at the very least.
I honestly don't like a LOT of things regarding this industry and accountability. I guess I'm picking my "battles". If this happened in another industry, I think it would really matter what the industry is. I would say a comparable experience would be
"signing up for a service, and having someone sign you up for a service for 'FREE' that uses your name to pump up the numbers for this other service." To me... that sounds like my credit card company "signing me up" for "credit guard" services, managed by another company. A number of companies I know seem to be "signing me up" to things I didn't ask for. My merchant account provider just sent out a notice that it was signing me up for some special "fraud watch" service that I'd have to manually tell them to CANCEL if I didn't want it. I bet they use those internal numbers to justify all sorts of things... and these "credit guard" services are voracious... people sticking their hand in your pocket unsuspectingly for something you can write the credit agencies for and get for free. It's crazy.
nameslave said:
2. ExpireGuy is correct: we're talking about ID theft here. If they send me some free mousepads (got A LOT of them from local tech-related companies), I won't even bother mentioning.
It's just that in THIS case, you can see those mousepads were supplied from a company you didn't explicitly ask to do business with, and that degree of visibility concerns you. It's no different, especially if part of the deal for giving out the "free" mousepads involved the company you generally did business with, handing your contact information to this other company (where upon the other company can then say they had an existing relationship with you as a customer). Call me crazy, but I think retail is a lot more incestuous than people give it credit for.
~ Nexus
