Herself's Webtools

If you have anything left, domains, hosting, etc at Network Solutions I strongly urge you to move it elsewhere.

This week they’ve been caught using your subdomains as spam sites.

Earlier this week, a man named Win Betteridge told TechCrunch that Network Solutions pulled this clever little trick with his “social gaming” site, GotGame.com. Betteridge hosts GotGame with “NetSol,” and somewhere along the way, he realized that his unused GotGame sub-domains resolved to ad-infested “parking” pages.

“For instance, app.gotgame.com resolves to a Network Solutions page with text links, including ‘Poker Tournaments’ and ‘Texas Holdem Games,’” he said.

As pointed out by ArsTechnica, the Virginia-based Network Solutions reserves the right to do this with every site it hosts. The company’s terms of service include this:

You also agree that any domain name directory, sub-directory, file name or path (e.g.) that does not resolve to an active web page on your Web site being hosted by Network Solutions, may be used by Network Solutions to place a “parking” page, “under construction” page, or other temporary page that may include promotions and advertisements for, and links to, Network Solutions’ Web site, Network Solutions product and service offerings, third-party Web sites, third-party product and service offerings, and/or Internet search engines. You agree that Network Solutions may change the content and/or appearance of, or disable any of these temporary pages at any time, in its sole discretion, and without prior notice.

Yes, you can opt out this questionable program. But first you have to know about it. The EULA housing the above paragraph is 59,000 words long. [ read more The Register: Network Solutions hijacks customer sub-domains for ad fest]

Not so long ago Network Solutions made the tech news about domain front running:

Domain registrar Network Solutions has come under fire this week for what some believe is “domain name frontrunning.” The practice resulted in Network Solutions registering a previously-unregistered domain to itself immediately after someone searched for it, then holding the domain for four days before it could be purchased by someone else or at another registrar. But the company claims that it’s merely trying to protect customers from others doing exactly that. Until there is more regulation over frontrunning from ICANN, this is the best it can come up with.

News circulated about Network Solutions’ controversial practice over the weekend and built momentum throughout the week, as the company gained more and more bad press. Critics said that Network Solutions was holding domains hostage—the policy forced people to become Network Solutions customers instead of being able to go to another registrar after searching for domain availability. [ read more ArsTechnica - Network Solutions defends frontrunning ]

Until ICANN grows a backbone the only protection webmasters have against this type of behavior is to publish it far and wide and take our business elsewhere.