Lawyer friends have told me that it’s funny that laypeople assume that they know everything about the law. Random people ask them questions about copyright, import/export, restraining orders, cybercrime, etc. Most lawyers are very specialized and don’t feel comfortable talking outside of their area of expertise. (Perhaps out of fear that they’ll then be sued by giving bad advice.)
The same is true with Web developers. Because I spend much of my day in front of my computer a lot of people assume I know everything about computers, the Internet, networking, spyware, etc.
In fact, one lawyer–a friend of a friend–who had just finished lamenting the above mentioned fact about lawyers, asked me what I did. "Oh, you work with computers? I have a question. Suddenly my computer at home is really slow. What’s causing that?"
(Oddly, I was able to diagnose it, despite the fact that she was on a PC and I live in a Mac world. I asked, "do you have a teenager who has recently downloaded some music file-sharing software?" That quickly led to what the issue most likely was.)
Wow…five paragraphs in and I’m still not to the point of the post. I must really be trying to avoid work today.
The point of today’s post is to announce a new category on our flyte blog called Ignore It! Every week, a client gets an email or a fax that should go directly to the circular file. Invariably, they instead send it to me. (I don’t blame them; if I get a scary looking tax thingy in the mail I immediately contact my accountant.)
To save time, and perhaps shame some of these companies into better practices, (hah!) I’m going to start blogging about them here. No, I won’t create any links to them and give them any of my PageRank, but I might post some phone numbers if I’m really pissed.
If you have any suggestions for additional companies to add, please contact us rather than using the comment fields below. Provide as much detail as you can.
Today’s Ignore It! Spotlight: Domain Registry Support
What this company is doing certainly isn’t illegal…just misleading. They see a company’s new domain registration the way street hustlers see fresh-faced teens getting off the bus in Los Angeles…fresh meat.
Once you’ve registered your domain (i.e., yourdomain.com,) you’ll get an official looking fax from them titled: FINAL NOTICE OF DOMAIN EXTENSION. (Ah, if only it was the final notice.) They tell you that yourdomain.us "has now become available for registration. Consequently the possibility of conflicting domain name registrations may occur." (My emphases,not theirs.)
With phrases scattered throughout like:
REGARDING: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY NOTIFICATION PROCESS and
IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE UNITED STATES LEGAL CODE and
You are required to advice the notification processor of your intent to license this domain name…
it’s no wonder why it scares the bejeezuz out of many people.
This is not a business plan! This is a business scam!
There is no service being provided here. There’s no value-added item. This is just flood insurance for the north pole. If you do want to tie up other versions of your domain, worry about .org, .net and .biz long before you worry about .us. I mean, who uses .us?
In other words, if you receive a fax by the Domain Registry Support…Ignore it!
