Verisign is the name that is
expected to mean "Trust". It is the most common name noted for Digital
Certificates and is the owner of the original domain name registrant Network
Solutions Inc, which was once a monopoly domain name registrant.
At a time ICANN is threatening
to ease out public participation in its management and centralize its Cyber
Space control powers with a hand picked body of trusted lieutenants, the
horror stories emanating about Verisign's malpractices in domain name
registrations are very very disturbing.
From the many stories that are
emanating, ICANN is accused of fraud and unfair business practice to protect
its domain name registration business slipping out to its competitors. At a
time when other registrars are charging less than US $10 per domain name per
year, Verisign has priced its services at US $ 35 per year. It is therefore
natural that consumers should be interested in leaving Verisign registry
service and shifting it to others.
Instead of adopting consumer
friendly pricing to win and retain customers, Verisign appears to be adopting
a strategy of making difficult for people to transfer registrations out of
their registry. One of the strategies they appear to be using is to deny
registration requests either because they are too early or because they are
too late. Secondly by sending a form for transfer which is often reported not
received back.
One more strategy which is
creating panic in India is that they are sending reminders to all domain name
registrants through Net4india that renewal fees is not received and the domain
name is likely to be deactivated. On enquiry with Net4india it is told that
Verisign is billing them even for domains which are not renewed and accounting
payments on first in first out basis so that Net4india is penalised for domain
names not renewed.
A more probable reason beside
this attitude is perhaps to scare the Indian registrants and make them feel
insecure with Indian domain name registrars so that they can be persuaded to
register the domain names directly with Verisign.
It is not therefore surprising
that the Federal Trading Commission,(FTC), USA is conducting an enquiry about
Verisign's practices with regard to transferring Web addresses,
deleting domain names and sending direct mail solicitations to
customers of competitors.
FTC
has sought complaints from public to be filed through e-mail
newcase.atr@usdoj.gov
or online through the website
https://rn.ftc.gov/dod/wsolcq$.startup?Z_ORG_CODE=PU01.
Indian domain name registrants should therefore exercise caution while dealing
with Verisign and also take steps to lodge their complaints for whatever they
are worth if they have direct dealings with Verisign registry services. If
the attitude of Versign as indicated in the domain name registration service
is any indication, Indian e-commerce companies should also exercise caution in
using Verisign's services for digital certificates.
We hope that Verisign would soon realize the shortcomings in their anti
consumer policies and take steps to re-establish their relationship with the
Netizens by appropriate Netizen friendly attitude.
Naavi
August 12, 2002
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