We’ve had them too, a lot of people have and this has been going on for a very long time.

Why has nobody done anything about this?

Well, they have tried…

On 21 March 2002, accreditted ICANN Registrar TuCows owned OpenSRS sent out the following email to all of their resellers:

Subject: OpenSRS Live Reseller Update 03/21/02

Greetings -

Please find following an update on OpenSRS.

1. Unsolicited renewal offers from third parties

1. Unsolicited renewal offers from third parties
-------------------
We would like to advise you of a business practice that is
becoming common in the domain marketplace and may result
in you losing customers. With increasing frequency,
companies are making unsolicited offers directed towards
existing registrants of other firms.

A company will send a letter (sometimes email, sometimes
postal) to a domain registrant thanking them for either
registering, or renewing their domain name.  The letter
will also invite them, in language that suggests a prior
business relationship exists with the soliciting company,
to make some change to the domain, or to renew it, which
would result in the name being transferred to the new
organization.

We recommend taking the following steps to ensure that
your registrants understand these issues:

a) regular general updates to your clients so they are
familiar with your company name and the services you
provide to them

b) specific updates (as warranted, see example below) with
respect to these activities, who is perpetuating them and
what to look out for, as well as the consequences
(service interruptions, etc...)

c) warning registrants explicitly about this issue in your
renewal notices; registrants often receive offers when
their domain is approaching renewal.

Specifically alerting registrants to unsolicited offers
before the expiry date should increase registrant
knowledge and decrease unintentional transfers.

d) warning registrants explicitly in the customizable
message that is sent to the administrative contact to
approve a transfer away from you. If your clients do
inadvertently respond to these offers, the 'Transfer
Away' email is your last chance to inform them of the
facts of the situation.

Once recent example is an aggressive solicitation
campaign by the Domain Registry of Canada/America. Their
language encourages renewal with them, instead of the
registrant's current registration service provider. We
have found that a large number of registrants who receive
these notices believe that the letter is from their
existing registration service provider, and do not
understand that they are in fact requesting a transfer to
a new company, who may not provide similar services.

Below is a sample message you can customize and use:

"A company calling itself "Domain Registry of Canada" or
"Domain Registry of America" is targeting <RSP> customers
to renew their domains.  They obtained our customers'
contact information through the publicly accessible
WHOIS database, and are sending renewal notices through
regular mail in an envelope and on stationary
intentionally designed to appear to be an official
government notice.

It has been brought to our attention that these letters
have been causing a great deal of confusion among our
customers.  We hope to clear up any confusion with this
email.

You absolutely SHOULD NOT send any money to "Domain
Registry of Canada"/"Domain Registry of America" in order
to renew your domain, as <RSP> is your domain name
provider.

If you have already sent money, we suggest contacting your
bank or credit card company regarding your options of
having payment stopped or reversed.

We regret that this notice is necessary, but feel it is
important to notify our clients of this issue.  If you
have any questions regarding this or any other issue,
please do not hesitate to contact us at <supportaddress>."

+------------

Building strong relationships with your clients including
regular contact will ensure they are clear that you are
their supplier. The stronger these relationships are, the
fewer registrants will act on these misleading messages,
and the more customers you will retain.

These are some of the things you can do to protect your
business. We also are continuing to pursue and assess
legal and policy initiatives that are at our disposal
where the behavior of the company is in conflict with
accreditation requirements or is possible illegal.

As always - thanks for your continued support of OpenSRS!

Thanks -

Ken Joy
Product Manager, OpenSRS

So, What’s changed since then?

Even though this sparked a court case (which never came to light), the message still applies to this day.

The “Domain Registry of America” (also known as the “Domain Registry Group”) are still sending out notices as part of a “domain slamming” campaign, while OpenSRS are reminding people not to trust them.

In 2009, OpenSRS went on to remind people by reposting the information, saying:

We get calls daily from domain holders who have fallen victim to domain slamming

So, who can do something about this?

In 2001, the federal Competition Bureau (of Canada) issued a warning about documents that appeared to be invoices sent out by a business called the “Internet Registry of Canada.”

Action was taken again in 2003, this time by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), but this hasn’t stopped them.

In 2008, ICANN, the task force behind .com and .net domains said:

“we are aware of accredited registrars in North America with officers that have been convicted of mail fraud, that continue to be associated with the deceptive marketing practices employed by the Domain Registry of America. We do not consider this an acceptable situation. Accreditation processes must be reviewed, and that review must be released for public scrutiny”

While also in 2009, the Advertising Standards Authority (UK) went on to issue an adjudication on the “Domain Registry of America”.

What can I do to stop this?

The advice is to apply the following:

• WHOIS Privacy
• This service is generally provided for free and means that your postal details cannot be viewed.
• Domain locking
• If your domain is locked it cannot be transferred away from your registrar without being unlocked first.
• Communication
• Let us know, let your host/ISP know, let advertising watchdogs know, let everyone know. The more people that are aware of this problem the better.

KEEP any notices or letters you have received and take a digital copy (scan or photo) as they can be used as evidence.

Although you can also send a complaint to ICANN (the non-profit organization that oversees the use of Internet domains) their advice is to file a formal complaint with consumer protection entities and advertising watchdogs such as:

• International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network
• Advertising Standards Authority (United Kingdom)
• Federal Trade Commission (United States)
• Competition Bureau (Canada)

If in doubt, contact your domain registrar.

Update @ 25/07/11

We submitted a complaint to ASA, who replied saying that “recipients are unlikely to respond to the advertisement in error”.

Although we agree with ASA (having read their full response), it is still strongly advise that you continue to use domain locking and WHOIS privacy as form of protection against domain slamming attempts.

A decision had to be made.

You see, the context of the HM2K blog has always had a subtle undertone of my business and the work I do online. That business is Phurix web hosting.

Phurix has always supported me and the blog, but unfortunately, because of other commitments I have less and less time to write and publish.

At first I thought the best solution would be to shut down the blog and call it a day, while a colleague said he thinks I should keep it online.

I’ve been thinking about a solution for a long time but then, while I was on holiday, it hit me.

Merge it into the Phurix brand and it made sense too:

• HM2K.com was a hard concept to explain
• Easier concept: Phurix Labs:”Where we experiment with ideas and findings”
• HM2K.com had no context, it would often seem random
• Makes more sense in the context of the business
• HM2K.com had no real focus or agenda
• Focus on what is important: the business
• HM2K.com was a burden on one person
• Shared with Phurix
• HM2K.com was not making money
• By improving brand awareness business will increase

A proposal was put forward and it went better than expected, it all seemed to fit together nicely. Perfect!

The decision was made and I have no regrets.

Today, we started by introducing a new “Phurix Labs” theme to HM2K.com, so that’s phase one is done.

Over the next few days, the website will be migrated from here to “labs.phurix.net” (where it now belongs). That’s phaze two.

Thanks for reading and I hope you continue to support the new Phurix Labs project.

These are exciting times, watch this space!

About Phurix

Since 2004, Phurix has offered affordable and reliable hosting services with a no nonsense approach. Phurix will continue to provide a high quality of service and engage with customers to ensure its future and growth.

Authorised cPanel Partner and OpenSRS partner.

About Phurix Labs

Phurix Labs is where we experiment with ideas and findings. You’ll find all sorts of useful tools and information.

It’s not so easy because you have to convert from miles per gallon to pence per liter, not only that but it’s an imperial gallon.

Surely there’s a calculator out there that could do this for me to save me having to remember how to work it out.

There wasn’t, but I had an idea.

Recently I’ve been playing with WolframAlpha, however, I’ve found it has some garbage in garbage out issues. That is, most of the time it thinks what you’re putting in is garbage so it outputs garbage.

I soon discovered that there was a pattern to how you have to enter the calculation to get it to return the result you want.

Once I’d figured out the right instruction I discovered their “widgets”.

This lets you make a “widget” which makes it easy to enter the details to work out the calculations. This way the instruction is always the same.

You can also put the widget on your website or blog.

So here it is:

• Find out more

I’ve tried emailing them…

[email protected]

No response.

I’ve tried using their “online quote request”

“please fill in the form below for a competitive quote”

http://www.upgrade.co.uk/quotes.asp

No response.

I’ve tried emailing a contact I already had:

Alex Holden <[email protected]>

It failed.

I’ve tried emailing another email address listed on their site:

[email protected]

No response.

Their website is difficult to reach:

http://upgrade.co.uk

Server not found

Even when you do reach their website, it looks pants and is difficult to navigate.

Pants

To further add insult to injury: All the phone numbers on their website are 0871 numbers charged at 10p per minute:

0871 231 1900

* Please note calls to this number will cost 10 pence per minute from BT landlines, calls from other networks and mobiles may vary. Calls may be recorded for training and quality purposes

Call Now For Dell Spares and Dell Upgrades – 0871 231 1924

I’m going to say no

They seem to leave me with only one option, which is to open a credit account with them:

Click here to open the credit application form, please then fill in all the details on the form, print it, sign it and fax it along with two trade references to 0871 231 1921. If you have any problems or queries, please call on 0871 231 1900.

No thanks

Will anyone ever get back to me?

Whatever your hardware needs we can help

Main Tel: +44 (0) 871 231 1900
Main Fax: +44 (0) 871 231 1921
Website: www.upgrade.co.uk

Customer services: [email protected]
Account sales: [email protected]
Internet sales: [email protected]
Accounts: [email protected]
Human resources: [email protected]
Marketing: [email protected]

Upgrade Options Ltd
Clocktower, Greenhills Rural Enterprise Centre,
Greenhills Estate, Tilford, Surrey GU10 2DZ

I have hardware needs, but don’t appear to be getting any help…

I did however manage to find an alternative phone number…

Upgrade Options Ltd.
Greenhills Estate
Tilford Road
Tilford
Farnham
Surrey
GU10 2DZ

Telephone:    01252-797660

Companies House
Registration Number:    2873785

From http://www.do-business.net/Indexer/Company/Upgrade-Options-Ltd

Success, the number works. Press 1 for sales…

Just in case you missed it, that’s

01252 797660

Enjoy!

Update

It turns out that emailing [email protected] gets a response within 24 hours. Jack Bodian <[email protected]> was kind enough to get back to me with a non-answer, but a response all the same.

When I was developing a new company name, I created about 20 using this method, each time I would follow the steps through to create a name that was appropriate, unique and usable.

1. Get inspiration

First of all you have to select a few sources for inspiration. You need ideas as to what you’re looking for.

Most companies begin by thinking up variations of the activity they do (ie: for a company selling mobile phone: mobile, phone, cell, sales, etc), however sometimes a company may not sell anything specific, and may cover many different activities.

You can try investigating other company names, to see where they got their inspiration from.

Find words that you like, or that sound as if they relate to your general activities.

Look at your own name, and names of others involved in the company, see if they can give inspiration.

Place names are good too, see if you can become establish based on the name of your area.

2. Generate a unique name

Once you have your inspiration, there’s a few techniques you can use to get the unique name that you are looking for:

• Crossword Helper/Solver – This will allow you to use certain formulas to pick words. (ie: using the initials of the partners to help you generate appropriate words).
• Thesaurus – Allows you to find synonyms for words your choice of words.
• Anagrams – Use this with a combination of names involved in the company or such.
• Translator – Try translating a few words you’ve chosen to get that unique angle.

3. Validate it’s usable

You should really ensure that the name you choose is not in use, recommendations for ensuring they are not in use include:

• Check with your common sense – If your company is only open 12 hours a day, for gods sake, don’t call your company “24seven”.
• Checking with government departments (in the UK such as CompaniesHouse WebCheck).
• Check the registered trademarks database for your country and possibly major countries such as US and UK, as existing companies may wish to expand into your country, meaning you would not be authorised to use the name.
• Check with yellow pages, and ensure there’s no one already using the name.
• Check with Google, check for variants (eg: “my idea”, myidea, etc), if it’s commonly used by a website or company for their product or service, then chances are they could battle you over rights to the name. Avoid where possible.
• Check that there is no active domain name using your name, (eg: myidea.com). Sometimes domain names are not in use and are just parked/advertising/on sale, always check first.

Feedback

Once you have a sufficient amount of names, gather feedback from your friends and family.

I found asking them their top 5 and their bottom 5 helped narrow down the choices.

This will help you settle on a name that will work for you and your customers.

If all else fails…

You could always try the assistance of a naming firm or a company name generator, but there’s nothing quite like your own inspiration, so don’t give up straight away.

Note: I DO NOT help you choose a company name for free.

To put it simply, the majority of the time you won’t even need to copyright your website. This is because it is generally pretty easy to prove that you originally created it.

However, sometimes you may want that extra bit of reassurance to prove without a shadow of a doubt that you are in fact the true copyright holder of the website.

Under British law it is stated that the copyright is created when the creation leaves the creators mind and takes a physical form, so when it comes to websites it can become complicated.

One of the most popular methods of ensuring you own the copyright to your material is to follow these steps:

1. Get a few witnesses to sign and date a document that states they have checked the work, and believe it is original.
2. Print off a copy of the design and source code or place the material on a form of media (such as CD or DVD).
3. Place the print or media into an envelope (or package) along with the signed document.
4. Seal the package and send it to your or your lawyers address via special delivery post, this will be stamped and dated.
5. Do not open the package, leave it sealed and ensure it is stored safely.

This method has been proven to work in British courts in the past to resolve copyright disputes, however it may not always work, so always seek advise from a lawyer.

You could also try the UK Copyright Service or the UK Intellectual Property Office. Also see Copyright in the Wikipedia.