The Domain Name Hostage Game

from the let's-make-this-as-difficult-as-possible... dept

Network Solutions has often had the reputation of being less than easy to work with. Now, they're being accused of holding a bunch of domain names hostage. A German registrar that used to work with Network Solutions to handle their registrations recently decided to move all of their accounts to their own subsidiary. In response, Network Solutions sent all of the German company's customers letters asking them to renew directly with Network Solutions. This isn't a huge surprise. Lots of registrar companies (including NSI) are known for sending mailings to people that look suspiciously like bills to try to trick them into moving their domain names. The various registrars have gotten in trouble for this before. However, on top of this, NSI also refused to transfer the domains unless the customers (most of whom were in Germany... and thus spoke German) sent a fax written in English. Unfortunately, this isn't all that surprising given the way most registrars work. It's a little sad that they think the way to keep customers is to make it as hard as possible to transfer out, rather than making sure the service is better than the competition.