darnell Posted December 20, 2007 Share Posted December 20, 2007 (edited) Hello everyone, although I am not certain anyone here can help I figured at the very least this would be a warning to others. We have had a REAL issue with a company named Maltuzi buying misspellings of our domain name. After ALOT of research I have discovered this is due mainly to where you go to register your domain. Example: We goto totalchoicehostings link and from there we clicked to see if a certain domain was available. However many sites (and I am not stating totalchoice does this) if you do not buy the domain at once somehow your domain name request is then sent to this major purchasing company who decides to "taste" your domain name to see if it generates traffic.... I suppose the long story short of this is they now have a few misspellings of our domain name and have placed a bunch of pay per click links on their site litterally using info off of our site. They will take words, statements whatever from us and use it in their page to generate hits. Many are mistakenly going there site instead or trying to e-mail us yet mispelling the domain name... Apparently they also practiced this with Microsoft who from what I can see has a lawsuit against them... At any rate PLEASE be careful with who you use to see if a domain name is available. From what I see you need to go right to the source internic.com I believe.... Sincerely, Darnell Edited December 20, 2007 by darnell Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madmanmcp Posted December 20, 2007 Share Posted December 20, 2007 Example: We goto totalchoicehostings link and from there we clicked to see if a certain domain was available. TCH is not in the Domain Name business and have no say or involvement in any of this. Alls they do is provide a link to another company to make it easy for the customers to purchase a domain name. Wild West Domains is the registrar that is used and they are the ones who are selling the queries for domains to these other companies. Just wanted to redirect to the correct place. Yes I agree its a wide spread problem and its very hard to avoid. But its something TCH can not control and happens to almost all the other hosting companies also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeJ Posted December 20, 2007 Share Posted December 20, 2007 Unfortunately misspellings of domain names can and will happen anyway and it's relatively easy to see domains that were recently registered no matter what domain registrar you use. Your options really are to register common misspellings yourself, ignore it and hope it doesn't happen, or go after them with a legal suit. We (a company I used to work for) successfully went after someone who had purchased wwwourdomain.com (with the missing first . ) to point at their I AM A SPAMMER site mooching off mistypings of our domain which is quite a popular domain. However, that company had deep legal funds. I have a domain I've used personally and professionally since 1997 and someone has registered the same domain by dropping just one letter to put up an MLM site. Unfortunately there isn't much I can do about it since I can't prove the scheme he is running is illegal and I don't have the funds to afford really taking legal action. Your best defense really, though, if you want to protect your domain name, is to get a trademark on it. Then it'll be easier to go after those who try to mooch of your trademark by slight variations. If they are using your content or links to your content, it's pretty easy to show the intent is to profit off your name and site, and simply contacting their hosting provider may be able to get their site yanked (particularly if they are copying your content to their site, as you can claim copyright infringement). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-Dick Posted December 20, 2007 Share Posted December 20, 2007 Take a look at our previous discussion about these issues and the article I linked to. It will give you a good insight into how and why this is done. http://www.totalchoicehosting.com/forums/i...st&p=207296 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevesh Posted December 21, 2007 Share Posted December 21, 2007 Example: We goto totalchoicehostings link and from there we clicked to see if a certain domain was available. However many sites (and I am not stating totalchoice does this) if you do not buy the domain at once somehow your domain name request is then sent to this major purchasing company who decides to "taste" your domain name to see if it generates traffic.... Seems to me this is the important part of this problem. I've had this seem to happen with more than one domain registrar. It would seem to suggest that the registrar is in cahoots with the squatters... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
earthwormjim Posted December 21, 2007 Share Posted December 21, 2007 Seems to me this is the important part of this problem. I've had this seem to happen with more than one domain registrar. It would seem to suggest that the registrar is in cahoots with the squatters... Only if you are naive enough to believe it. I would suggest you actually do a little research instead of jumping on the paranoid bandwagon. /me wonders if anyone can loan me a tinfoil hat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevesh Posted December 21, 2007 Share Posted December 21, 2007 I think you're in the wrong forum - we usually try to treat each other with respect around here. Thanks for your input. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevesh Posted December 29, 2007 Share Posted December 29, 2007 Not to beat a dead horse, but... Check this Slashdot post Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madmanmcp Posted January 10, 2008 Share Posted January 10, 2008 And taking a page from Microsoft's book. "Its not a bug, its a feature" explanation... h_tp://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Network-Solutions-Holding-Domain-Names-Ransom-90862 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-James Posted January 10, 2008 Share Posted January 10, 2008 Not to beat a dead horse, but... Check this Slashdot post If you read the comments section of that article you can see it verified that Network Solutions is domain squatting. Any domain searched for is registered with a 5 day hold automatically. Unethical at the very least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madmanmcp Posted January 10, 2008 Share Posted January 10, 2008 If you read the comments section of that article you can see it verified that Network Solutions is domain squatting. Sorry, no I didn't see that and I just looked at the comments there again and I still didn't see it. I reopened this because the admission AND explanation from Network Solutions was new. h_tp://www.circleid.com/posts/81082_network_solutions_front_running/ A security measure that only allows you to register the domian at Network Solutions for 5 days... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-James Posted January 10, 2008 Share Posted January 10, 2008 Sorry, no I didn't see that and I just looked at the comments there again and I still didn't see it. I reopened this because the admission AND explanation from Network Solutions was new. h_tp://www.circleid.com/posts/81082_network_solutions_front_running/ A security measure that only allows you to register the domian at Network Solutions for 5 days... Shady business practices for sure. The jist of the amusing comments is that people started searching for things like "uselessdomain0001", "networksolutionssucks", etc. and watched them quickly gobbled up by Network Solutions. Hopefully some of the other registrars start complaining to ICANN. Front running to prevent front running doesn't sound like a smart thing to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silica Posted January 10, 2008 Share Posted January 10, 2008 Shady business practices for sure. The jist of the amusing comments is that people started searching for things like "uselessdomain0001", "networksolutionssucks", etc. and watched them quickly gobbled up by Network Solutions. Hopefully some of the other registrars start complaining to ICANN. Front running to prevent front running doesn't sound like a smart thing to do. I'm actually surprised that "networksolutionssucks" wasn't already taken. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-James Posted January 10, 2008 Share Posted January 10, 2008 I'm actually surprised that "networksolutionssucks" wasn't already taken. Ha, it probably was but I just used that as an example. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pony99CA Posted January 21, 2008 Share Posted January 21, 2008 Shady business practices for sure. The jist of the amusing comments is that people started searching for things like "uselessdomain0001", "networksolutionssucks", etc. and watched them quickly gobbled up by Network Solutions. Hopefully some of the other registrars start complaining to ICANN. Front running to prevent front running doesn't sound like a smart thing to do. Network Solutions isn't the only registrar that has been accused of shady business practices. Remember VeriSign's "Site Finder", which basically did default routing (routing unregistered domains to their own page), similar to what Ken Ham did with the .cm domain mentioned in TCH-Dick's post. It seems like Microsoft's Internet Explorer and various ISPs (including Charter, which I use) do the same thing now. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pony99CA Posted January 21, 2008 Share Posted January 21, 2008 TCH is not in the Domain Name business and have no say or involvement in any of this. Alls they do is provide a link to another company to make it easy for the customers to purchase a domain name. Wild West Domains is the registrar that is used and they are the ones who are selling the queries for domains to these other companies. Wild West Domains is GoDaddy's subsidiary that allows affiliate domain sales. Compare Wild West Domain.com's WHOIS information: Wild West Domains, Inc. 14455 N Hayden Rd #219 Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 United States with GoDaddy.com's: GoDaddy.com, Inc. 14455 N Hayden Rd #226 Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 United States Look familiar? But see if you can find GoDaddy mentioned on Wild West's site.... However, if you visit GoDaddy's Reseller page, you'll see the link. So it's quite likely that TCH gets a cut of the sales -- not that that's necessarily a bad thing. And it doesn't mean that TCH is registering searched domains, of course. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCH-James Posted January 21, 2008 Share Posted January 21, 2008 Network Solutions isn't the only registrar that has been accused of shady business practices. Remember VeriSign's "Site Finder", which basically did default routing (routing unregistered domains to their own page), similar to what Ken Ham did with the .cm domain mentioned in TCH-Dick's post. I still see Verisign and Network Solutions as one in the same (Verisign having previously owned NetSol), so it's not surprising to see shady practices from the both of them. It seems like Microsoft's Internet Explorer and various ISPs (including Charter, which I use) do the same thing now. I think it's a bit different for Internet Explorer to try and show relevant search results if it cannot find the site over redirecting to a similarly registered domain. Maybe I'm wrong and they are doing something more shady there, but I don't use IE all that often. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pony99CA Posted January 21, 2008 Share Posted January 21, 2008 I think it's a bit different for Internet Explorer to try and show relevant search results if it cannot find the site over redirecting to a similarly registered domain. Maybe I'm wrong and they are doing something more shady there, but I don't use IE all that often. Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear. I meant that IE and ISPs providing their own search pages was like VeriSign's Site Finder, not that it was similar to what Network Solutions is doing by holding the domains themselves. Regarding Network Solutions, do registrars make available data on what domains were searched for? I can understand making data available on what is actually registered, but why would they show what was being searched for? (Well, maybe to get more money, I suppose. ) Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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