I’ve heard of the Network Solutions Fiascoes a little bit, but have never been directly involved with them, as I’ve always just registered them through a straightforward provider (Godaddy). I wasn’t going to pay 35 bucks or more just for a domain name when the content was going to be the primary focus of my website.

I also agree with you about suffering for your own incompetence. By getting rid of that grace period, as you said, domain companies won’t be able to tell how marketable it is, thus the actual practice of domain squatting will be severely diminished, as they won’t be able to tell as effectively.

Hopefully ICANN will do something about this (if they haven’t already).

Last January there was an uproar about how, when you do a domain name search at the Network Solutions site, they register the domain themselves for 5 days and then try to charge you $35 for it.

Network solutions Using Questionable Domain Tactics

Network Solutions Steals Domain Ideas Confirmed

Network Solutions is Getting Better

I don’t know what Network Solutions does currently, or if they finally cleaned up their act, but after hearing about the above, I don’t think I’ll ever trust Network Solutions.

It seems one thing that made their unscrupulous practices possible was the five-day grace period for companies like Network Solutions to register a domain without paying any fees.

I read something somewhere which claimed that there are companies which take advantage of the grace period by just re-registering a domain every five days, thereby avoiding ever having to pay fees on the domain, which I guess is so common it even has a name, “domain kiting”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_kiting

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_tasting : “In January 2008, ICANN announced that the exemption on transaction costs (US$ 0.25) during the five-day grace period would be abandoned, which would effectively make the practice of domain tasting not viable.”

I haven’t found out yet if ICANN has actually implemented that yet, though. If they haven’t already, I think they ought to just get rid of the grace period entirely – I think it would probably solve a lot of problems.

If that meant domain registration companies like Network Solutions could no longer accept credit cards due to the risk of credit card fraud, I don’t really see a problem with that – it might help make the credit card companies take responsibility for their own rampant problems with fraud. There are other ways besides credit cards to instantaneously take payments over the internet – PayPal, for one.

I say, let the credit card companies suffer the consequences of their own incompetence – maybe then they’ll be motivated to improve themselves to better serve their customers, such as by implementing more effective anti-fraud measures.

I enjoy your blog.

Best wishes,
Apollia