TechCrunch is reporting that now Network Solution is hijacking traffic to the sub-domains to the domains hosted by them. From the post, Win Betteridge, who runs GotGame.com contacted TechCrunch with the following details —

For instance, app.gotgame.com resolves to a Network Solutions page with text links, including “Poker Tournaments” and “Texas Holdem Games.” The same is true of any other unassigned sub-domain. We have spoken to customer service a few times about fixing this problem…

I don’t know if this is standard practice for a hosting company, but this strikes me as another case of Network Solutions unreasonably profiting at the expense of its customers.

This is shocking and absolutely unethical — and no this is NOT a common practice by hosts but rather the greed of Network Solutions. The TechCrunch post has comments from readers which describes other Network Solutions horror stories.

But well, this is Network Solutions – the hypocrites of highest order – the guys who themselves do Front-Running while pretending to be fighting it and recently got sued for it. I wonder if they will ever stop being a Crook?

bdjuf posted a thread on DNForum about how Network Solutions is giving him trouble with a Stolen Domain even though Robert had called them up to investigate the issue. Here’s his side of the story —

Hey everyone

so many months back I bought a CC.com for 10,000$, from a domain broker who now I know is a thief. The funny thing is, this thief was actually the whois email of a very good LLL.com (a company), so I had no idea trusting the seller at the time.

I went through escrow.com, sent the payment, and when it came time for transfer (at netsol), the domain was under a “temporary lock”.

I called netsol to see whats up with the domain, ask if it’s stolen, and the rep assured me that everything was fine with the domain, and the lock was there simply because of protection for the account. The rep then offered to merge the account in which the CC.com was and my account, and then she did.

So now I have the domain name in my netsol account.

Many weeks after I purchased the name, Netsol calls me up telling me that the domain I have is stolen, and the previous owner wants it back. I immediately tell them that as I would be more than happy to return this (25k+) CC.com as long as I get my 10,000$ back. (fair enough, right?) I also assured netsol that I won’t be transfering the domain out, and that I am there for their full cooperation if they needed my help for anything. I forwarded them all emails and did everything they asked.

So now, NetSol is calling me up telling me how I am partially to blame because I did not investigate this locked status (me calling and explicitly making sure everything is fine with the domain name wasn’t enough obviously). They also tell me to speak to Escrow to see how I can get my money back.

Turns out Escrow can’t get my money back without the bank owner’s (the hijacker’s) consent, which we all know we aren’t getting.

Now the situation is that Netsol called the FBI about the situation, and the FBI will contact escrow asking for the bank information of the hijacker.

I would never keep any of my precious names at a registrar like Network Solutions but rather transfer them to someone more secure like Moniker the moment I can.

But that’s not the point. The point is that how much is NetSol to be blamed when their representative said everything was okay.

Follow the discussion on DNForum.

Continue Reading