HOW TO BECOME A TOTAL FAILURE

After I read about the class action suit against Network Solutions on Vnunet today, I came to the conclusion that Network Solutions may have forced consumers to pay their yearly fee for a domain name just for the money. According to the article written by Clement James, he stated that the suit filed against Network Solutions claimed the company registered domain names soon after the consumer searched for its availability. By doing this, consumers were forced to purchase the domain name from Network Solutions for a much higher fee, which left the consumers unable to pay less than $10 a year from one of Network Solutions’ competitors. Here’s an excerpt from Clement James’ article published at Vnunet:

“The suit claims that when users search for the availability of a domain name through Network Solutions’ website the company immediately registers the name for itself.

This prevents other registrars from selling the domain name and forces consumers to pay Network Solutions’ fees. The process is known in the industry as ‘front running’.

Kabatek claimed that if a consumer were to go to another, cheaper site to register the name they would find it ‘unavailable.’”

Here are some other sites discussing this issue:

http://www.domainnamenews.com/featured/domain-registrar-network-solutions-front-running-on-whois-searches/1359
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/25/network-solutions-icann-sued-over-domain-front-running/

It sure sounds to me as if Network Solutions is following rule #5: it’s all about the money. Would you agree, and if not, what rule do you believe they fall under?

This is a guest post written by Misti Sandefur who is an avid freelance writer, novelist and blogger. Misti enjoys writing articles, short stories, e-books, print books, personal essays and Web copy for regional and national publications, publishers, book producers, businesses, nonprofit organizations and fellow writers who have too much on their plates and need assistance. Furthermore, she’s publisher and editor of the Coffee Break for Writers e-zine, and the author of two books, which are published under Misti Jackson. To find out more about Misti, visit her on the web and at her Life of a Writer blog.